


Karma

by remesy



Category: One Piece
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Blood and Violence, Death, Drama, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love, M/M, Organized Crime, Romance, Sexual Content, Smut, Trauma, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 79,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remesy/pseuds/remesy
Summary: AU Zoro/Sanji In Roronoa Zoro's life, all he had known was to be an assassin, to kill without any human emotions. In one of his usual missions, he was tracked and taken down by two people. When he wakes up, he finds himself inside the home of a shitty blond cook, who helps him be a human once more by teaching him how to love.





	1. The Life of an Assassin

_You might ask me why I live this life and truth be told, I don't know either._

Jumping from roof to roof, the wind whispered into his ears. Indecipherable noises they were, but distracting simultaneously. Their soft conversations clouded his mind and cleansed him of any guilt in his heart. There were also sounds of jingles in his left ear, echos from his three golden earrings clinking against one another. By his waist, his three swords felt heavy. Perhaps it was because of another burden he was about to put them through.

His right foot made a soft contact against the blue tinted roof. His lungs were filled with the chilly night air, and when he exhaled, the contrasts of temperature created a wisp of vapor from his mouth.

He sensed few strangers below and nearby, laughing and conversing, oblivious to the savagery of this world. Even few lovers who were senselessly drowning in the mix of sweat and passion.

He felt a streak of envy, for he had no one meaningful by his side.

His long nosed partner landed right next him. "Tonight, you aren't getting lost," his partner mused. In a way Kaku was a weird guy. If anyone saw him in the middle of the street, they would automatically assume that he's normal. A sheep in the flock. Perhaps someone cheerful and friendly.

"Approximately a minute left before our target arrives in a black limousine, guarded by two heavily equipped bodyguards." Kaku smiled innocently while cocking his pistol into gear.

So much for a normal guy.

Zoro, as well, prepared for the upcoming fight. He gracefully extracted his three swords, placed two into his hands and one in his mouth.

As expectantly, Kaku's estimations were one hundred percent correct. The limousine pulled over in front of a shady strip club within a minute. Three males exited, all wearing straightened suits. But it was an obvious guess to know which one was their real target. A short man, roughly about 5"3', wore a fancier suit than the two giants by his side. And as a further proof, the employees of the stripped club, wearing striped red and white uniforms directed their welcoming gestures singly and directly at the short man.

"We should have met the limousine awhile back. We can't attack him now when he's in a strip club. Henceforth, we should change our plans. I prepared for us, just in case something like this would take place." Kaku told him as he pulled out two fancy suits of their own. "Now we just have to infiltrate the place and pull him out of there somehow."

The green haired man nodded in agreement, knowing that Kaku's plans usually execute without a fault.

In the midst of this freezing weather, the two males had to change out of their clothes to put on a more polished attire. Zoro placed his three swords in an elongated briefcase made out of cow leather, where there were durable straps that enabled Zoro to place the briefcase diagonally across his back.

"Are you ready?" Kaku questioned, pocketing the handgun into the inner flap of his gray jacket.

After executing numerous numbers of mission after missions, year after years, Zoro couldn't have been more than ready by now. His blood pumped clamorously in his ears and a mischievous grin stretched aligned with the lines of his chin.

"Let's go."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Excuse me, sirs. You cannot enter without paying." An employee in his striped red and white uniform daringly stopped Zoro and Kaku with his palms raised. "This club regulates a strict policy. We cannot just let anyone in here."

A dangerous look bypassed Kaku's eyes, and Zoro had to tap him to snap him back into reality.

"How much?" The swordsman asked while reaching for his pockets.

But the employee must have seen Kaku's expression because he abruptly drew back in fear. "Ah, I mean, please ignore what I previously said. Please go in, sirs, make an entrance to the right at the end of the hallway." His eyes were lit like a paralyzed deer that accidentally jumped in front of a speeding car, with Kaku being the driver.

Subtly, Zoro gave the employee a nod, which he had ignored completely, presumably because he didn't want to risk making another eye contact with Kaku. Understanding, Zoro just let him be.

A foul scent instantaneously filled his nostrils when he entered the building. The stench of sex: semen and sweat, mixed with an odd odor from the pipes. It was almost nauseating. The darkness that surrounded him only accentuated the fetid smell and encouraged him to speed up his pace.

When he made a turn at the end of the hallway, specifically to the right(with a bit of Kaku's help), an abrupt burst of cheers were loudly heard. He stepped inside the unexpectedly spacey room, with blinding lights blazing and loud dubstep music pumping in the background, and sweaty bodies constantly moving to the beat. A stage set in middle of the crowd, and a young woman seductively wrapping her leg around a pole. A wild cheer erupted from the crowd when she teasingly lowered one bra strap after the other. And those men who were close enough, threw their cash in heaps to the stripping brunette on stage, hoping she would notice them. Wild beasts they were, panting at the sight of a naked woman; howling and whistling to express their glee.

With a stoic expression, and appearing indifferent to his surroundings, Kaku approached the target without any hesitance.

The target was playing American poker, Texas Hold 'Em, with two blonde strippers by his side. With a thick cigar in his mouth, blowing out rings of smoke, he called out his bet. "Fifty dollars," he said in a heavy Italian accent.

The two other players called fold right after.

Kaku tipped his hat out of respect before speaking, "May I join you gentlemen in this fine game of poker?" he spoke with deeper tone of voice, conveying an air of polish and suavity, to fool these men into believing that he was much older than his actual age.

The target placed the cigar in between his index and middle finger, then lifted it from his mouth, before slurring his next words, "If you got cash,  _boy_ , that's all it takes. It don't matter if you got skills or not. Who's that big lad behind you?" He pointed his cigar behind Kaku's shoulders.

Zoro stood tall and did not speak. He had enough experience with Kaku to know whose mouth was more reliable in tricky situations like these. As always, Kaku fabricated a bullshit story with a laugh, "My fiance is awfully careful about having a bodyguard by my side at all times. She's a real sweetheart, but a huge pain in the ass." He pulled up a seat and handed Zoro his hat. "This guy's a pain in the ass too, but gentle. You don't have to worry about him."

The group consisting of strippers and gangsters laughed alongside with Kaku, clearly pleased with his amiable nature.

The four males placed their chips in the middle, called out their first round of bets and received two cards each. Zoro hardly played poker, or any card games for that matter, but there were certain aspects of this game that he definitely understood. Such as, when everyone else except for Kaku groaned the first round, he knew who had won.

"Was that pure luck or skill, kid?" A bald man in thick rimmed sunglasses, sitting directly across from their target, asked Kaku.

His long nosed partner chuckled as he drew in all the chips from the middle, "I'll say both."

For the next few hours, the four men intensely focused on their game. Their skills were evenly matched, but Zoro sensed that Kaku was purposely losing from time to time. Because if Kaku really wanted to, he could rob all of these men of their money with no trouble.

Zoro tapped Kaku on the shoulder, "I'm going to take a leak."

Kaku didn't reply, he simply nodded. The way his eyes were analyzing his opponents' expressions told Zoro that he was calculating his next move.

Unlike Zoro, who was all muscle in the organization, Kaku contributed as the brain and muscle, which made him more of a valuable member than Zoro.

The restroom was as distasteful as this whole place. The white walls were no longer white, with blotches of piss smeared everywhere. The whole placed smelled wretched, like every single person forgot to flush the toilets after their usage. And the brown smudges that he was overstepping, he didn't even want to know what they were.

He just wanted few seconds of peace and quiet to himself while relieving his bladder.

"Fuck you. Do this right or you're gonna get a taste of my bloody kick, you piece of shit."

Of course some obnoxious bastard had to have a loudmouth.

Peace and quiet? Definitely not.

Zoro heaved a profound sigh. He couldn't even enjoy a second of tranquility without some douche screaming his head off. What was so damn important that this idiot had to run his mouth? What a terribly annoying voice he had. Who has a voice like that?

In between the dirty sink and the empty paper towel rack, there stood a tall man. One of his knees was bent and his foot was flat against the tiles behind him, creating a perfect thirty-five degree angle. In his hand, he was furiously punching in characters into his phone. How he was seeing the screen with that curtain of blond hair obstructing his sight was a damn mystery. He wore a black, double-breasted suit; with six gold buttons that had unique set of engravings, three on each side of his chest; inside the jacket, he wore a solid navy blue buttoned shirt with a black tie. Under his breath, he continued to whisper foul profanities while chewing on the filter of his cigarette.

Zoro walked past the aggravated blonde, uninterested in his little issues, but still peeved by his obnoxious commotions.

He chose the farthest urinal from the corner where the blond stood. By the time he was finished with his business, the blond had already left the restroom. Zoro took his time with washing his hands before returning to Kaku and his gambling business.

When he spotted the four men who were playing poker few minutes ago, he saw that they were standing up and preparing to leave. Zoro wondered what the hell Kaku was up to now and how in the hell he was going to pull through this one.

"Boy, do you wanna have a smoke with me?" Their target spoke directly to the long nosed man while holding up a fat blunt.

A clear invitation.

Zoro caught a sly smirk on Kaku's face before he broke out into a friendly grin. "I've actually been dying for one." He accepted the offered blunt and placed it in his mouth, quite like how the blond had, except Kaku wasn't angrily chewing on it. "Since my bodyguard hates the scent, why don't we light it up outside?" It was clearly a psychological method he was using. I don't bring my bodyguard and you don't bring yours. Simple.

"We're all taking our leave. Your bodyguard should stray off for awhile then." The target's two bodyguards were by his side again, appearing formidable as ever. "I'll make my bodyguards stray too, so don't worry with them intimidating you."

Kaku rubbed his forehead, chuckling as he faked a sigh of relief. "That's a damn weight off my shoulders. I thought they wouldn't stop glaring at me and Malvin over there," he said as he jerked his thumb over towards Zoro.

_Who the hell is Malvin?_ Zoro twitched inwardly.

"Now, shoo, shoo," the target told the green haired man.

In that moment, Zoro had a vivid vision of how he was going to slice the target's neck, and how relieving that would feel.

By the time they were outside, Zoro was sent away to bond with the two bodyguards; and surprisingly, he had a nice conversation with them. Of course, nice enough to keep the conversation going before Kaku called him back.

"Code 4001, the target has been annihilated. Meet me back on the rooftop so we can dispose of the body. I already contacted the boss. Hurry back." His tone of speech was short and articulated, and it had already gone back to its monotonic manner.

Zoro ran down the streets, passing by few drunken pedestrians who were chatting up some unfortunate girls; even so, it was none of his business.

His nose stung from rapidly taking in and expelling the frigid air from his lungs repetitively. It felt like drinking icy water with a mint gum in your mouth.

But the main problem was, beside the terribly arctic temperature, some piece of shit thought it was a good idea to watch Zoro from afar, pointing his gun directly his way. On top of the roof of some Presbyterian church, facing East from where he stood, there was a sniper who watched the swordsman's every move through his scope.

He whispered to no one but mother nature herself, feeling a bit high and mighty, "I can kill you with my eyes closed," referring to the man who was about to pull the trigger.

Having been an assassin since he was a little boy, this keen sixth sense had only developed to its epitome over the years. Even if the man on the rooftop did pull the trigger, Zoro had enough confidence to dodge out of the way. After all, a swordsman was not made up of sheer power and skill but the spiritual connection to the world surrounding him. If a bullet was to pierce through the air, he had enough reliance of his reflexes to either deflect or evade.

What he did not expect was a voice behind him. A muffled tone and a disguised presence that Zoro was surprised to know about. "Well, let's see about that."

_Shit!_

A strong force hit the side of his head, so unexpectedly fast that Zoro had absolutely no time to react.

The last thing he saw was the streetlight across the street on the other side of the sidewalk. The light had a tinge of orange and yellow. It blurred and expanded when his vision began muddle. And the last sound he heard was the bullet piercing through the air.

_Guess I'm going to die,_ he thought before the left side of his head hit the ground. The dull thud of his body hitting the cement reverberated inside of his head before the blackness overcame his senses.

* * *

 

**About:** I'm currently in the process of transferring my fanfics from fanfiction to Archive. I hope you guys will enjoy this series as much as I am writing it! If you're a new reader, let me know what you think and what your predictions will be as the series continues. I'll be so surprised if anyone can guess the ending~

Also, Kaku talks like an old man, haha.


	2. The shitty cook who took him in

_Zoro..._

Who was that, he wondered.  _Who was calling my name?_

_Zoro, you're such an idiot..._

Ah, of course it was her. Who else could it be?

_Zoro, wake up!_

His eyes shot open, and the first thing he heard was the voice from the radio. "I hope everybody is getting ready for Christmas because we just brought in all the holiday tunes from the nineties! Starting with "Jingle Bell Rock!" The cheery voice yelled, "Counting down, twenty days until Christmas everyone, enjoy!" Then a familiar melody started playing with the repetitive rhythm of bells in the back.

He was still bouncing in between that state of consciousness and reverie, and he just wanted to go back to sleep. But then, a delicious smell tickled his nose and his stomach growled in response, telling him to wake the hell up and get some food.

" _Fuck_ ," he groaned as he leisurely sat up.

There was a sharp pain congested in his right shoulder, and if he wasn't too careful, he knew the wound would open right back up. Zoro looked around and saw that he was in a spacey room, painted Prussian blue; on a navy blue bed with some sophisticated swirly patterns; surrounded by piled up books and paintings. He also realized that his shoulder was roughly bandaged and his attires were completely different than what he had wore before.  _Kiss the cook,_ it said. Zoro had to raise an eyebrow at that. Now, why would Kaku put that shirt on him?

His stomach growled loudly again, demanding it to be filled.

_What a bright time_

_it's the right time_

_To rock the night away_

Zoro sniffed the pleasant scent and followed it like a dog would. His bare feet felt the ruffles of the light beige carpet underneath as he dragged his indolent body out of the room. His shoulder ached, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. In fact, a bullet wound was less than a mosquito bite to him by now.

The living room was all sorts of colors, and the morning light only shone to make those colors brighter. And just like the bedroom, blue was the room's main component. A nice shade of blue that resembled the ocean, a shade that represented tranquility and placidity.

His head began to throb.

"Kaku," he called out before walking into the vast kitchen, rubbing his temple with his forefinger.

In his mind, all the puzzle pieces were starting to fit together. Someone had attacked him that night, and the bastard's partner shot him from a distance. Zoro blacked out, and while he was out, Kaku came into the picture and probably beat the shit out of those two. Now, he and Kaku were residing in some random hotel as always.

Sounds of chopping, pots boiling, frying pans stirring, alarms beeping.

_Jingle around the clock_

Zoro walked in expecting perhaps some pancakes, not this grand luxury called food. And he certainly did not expect a blond man in a peach colored apron singing to himself while smoking a stick of nicotine, multitasking around the kitchen with a high level of proficiency. Delicately, yet with vigor, the blond shuffled a variety of ingredients into the giant crater that resembled both a frying pan and a pot.

He hummed the Christmas tune playing from the radio before acknowledging Zoro's presence.

_That's the jingle bell_

_That's the jingle bell rock_

In a velvety tone, the stranger asked, "You hungry?" He picked up a small remote control and pressed a button that turned off all the radios.

Zoro was surprised to hear that the strange blond had asked him such a general question. "Uh, yeah."

The stranger was easily recognizable. It was that annoying man from the bathroom, the one who was shouting his head off at some poor man on the other line. For some reason though, must be the apron, he didn't seem as hostile as he had that night. And speaking of  _that night,_ millions of questions bubbled inside Zoro's head.

"Who are you?" The swordsman asked, slightly feeling dumbfounded by the blond's astounding cooking abilities.

_How is he able to multitask like that?_

The stranger gritted his teeth, "That's what  _I_  should be asking, shithead. How in the hell did you get shot like that?" He gracefully poured the content from the frying pot onto two plates.

Unconsciously, Zoro's hand reached for his wounded shoulder. "This?"

"Yeah." The blond handed Zoro a plate as he took a seat across from him, allowing them to talk face to face.

Zoro had a better view of the man feeding him. A pale complexion with a pinkish undertone, with sharp jawlines and straight teeth. He had a small goatee on his chin and a small brown peach fuzz above his lips. His golden bangs completely hid one of his clear blue orbs out of sight, and his eyebrows... they were, well,  _curly?_

"Dunno. It was dark out and two dicks thought it would be a great idea to knock me out," Zoro answered the blond man while chewing his food, still wondering how one could have curled his brows.

The blond heaved a heavy sigh. "Okay." He crumpled the butt of his cigarette into an ashtray before proceeding. "So, let's start with the basics. What is your name?"

"You should always give your own name before asking for someone else's."

Zoro had already finished his plate because the food was so damn delicious from start to finish. He didn't know what he just ate or what they were even called, but everything on his plate was cooked and seasoned to perfection. "But since you gave me food and shelter, I'll let that slide. My name is Zoro Roronoa." Due to the fact that he and Kaku had been undercover for so long, his own name sounded foreign out of his mouth.

"Ah. My apologies," the stranger said before lighting up another cigarette, pushing his own plate forward. "You can have this, I'm full."

Zoro grinned boyishly, happy with the extra food given. "Thanks." He hadn't had good food in ages and this might top off everything he had ever eaten his entire life.

The blond waved that gratitude off, but in a fraction of a second, there was a hint of genuine satisfaction on his face.

"I'm Sanji. I found you in the middle of the night bleeding to death, so I took you to the nearby hospital to save your ass." Sanji grinned around the edges of his cigarette. "Just help out with some chores to compensate for my kindness. The doctors told me to watch out for your sorry ass until you're fully healed, so I guess you're stuck with me until then." Sanji's grin became a mischievous smirk. His lean fingers ran through his golden locks. "Nice to fucking meet you, Zoro Roronoa." As he said those words, his hands pulled away from the strands of his hair to offer a handshake to the swordsman.

 _What a foul mouth._ He gripped the blond's hand, half expecting it to be feminine, soft and lithe. But in actuality, his hand told a story of any other person who had gone through hard work; full of calluses and scars. "So you're saying that I can't leave until I'm completely healed?"

Sanji nodded. "Right."

Zoro was about to respond when his mind trailed off to a sudden realization. "Wait a minute... S _hit_ , do you know where my swords are?"

His three katanas... how could he have forgotten them? What if they were somewhere abandoned on the streets? Or perhaps someone took them with their filthy, worthless hands. Zoro felt his chest swell with distress. Two of those swords may be replaceable, but one of them was most definitely not. A mantra of cusses echoed inside his head until Sanji spoke up.

"You mean those?" The blond's visible eyebrow rose in perplexity. His thumb jerked in the direction of the living room, which was in plain sight from where they were sitting.

In the middle of the spacey room, there was a black couch; and on the black couch, amongst couple of clothes and books, Zoro's katanas were resting there. The swordsman released the air that had coiled at the pit of his stomach and instantaneously felt relief. He still didn't know who this cook was, but he had already saved Zoro about three times already.

"Thanks."

The cook seemed to be genuinely surprised by the green haired man's response. Perhaps he didn't realize how important those swords were to Zoro and that he had saved a part of the swordsman's essence as well as sanity. "No problem."

To break away from the awkward tension, the blond man stood up and gently dusted himself before going back to his kitchen chores.

Zoro watched the tall form from his peripheral vision and observed this man called 'Sanji' gracefully operating around his own place: washing and scrubbing the dishes; wrapping up any leftover ingredients; and placing all the kitchen supplies back into their usual places. It was strange to see another person in their familiar environment since he himself did not have a place called 'home'. But at the same time, this environment did not fit the title of being called 'home.' In fact, his initial instinct of thinking that this place being a hotel persisted.

So instinctively he asked, "Hey, is this where you live?"

Again, Sanji appeared surprised.

He wiped his hands on a dry rag hanging next to his head before he took out another cigarette to light. Zoro noted that this man was completely dependent on those tiny sticks. He went through them like a chimney, puffing one after another incessantly.

"How did you know that this isn't where I live?" Sanji's eyebrows tightly knitted with suspicion.

"Uh, intuition?" Zoro tried not to sound suspicious, though, there was nothing to be suspicious about.

Sanjis face was still full of suspicion but he decided to elaborate. "I take vacations here often because a good friend of mine runs multiple hotels and she lets me stay here for free every once in awhile. It's my little 'getaway,' you could say." He softly chuckled. "I usually come here when my job becomes too much for me to handle." His eyes became blank as if he was flipping through his memories. "I mean, being in the kitchen, it's like you're at war every single day struggling to get those orders out. It's so damn tiring." His expression softened again. "But when I come here to see the ocean, it's like I can get away from that part of my life."

Talking to this man was very easy. He was exceptionally social and smooth. The manner in which he talked reminded Zoro of Kaku, minus the killer psychopathic part.

"Hey, instead of coming here to take breaks, maybe you should create a life worth living," Zoro softly mumbled. But since it was a shamefully hypocritical remark, he asked the blond more questions. "So you're a chef?"

Sanji nodded pacifically before his expression contorted into one full of inquiries again. "Hey, can I ask you something?" His visible eye slanted a bit and his bottom lip drew forward.

The green haired assassin dreaded Sanji's questions. He could practically predict what they were going to be:  _What do you do for living? What were you doing that night? Why didn't anyone search for you yet? Why-_

"Why do you have green hair?" The blond asked with all due seriousness.

A silence prolonged after the question had been spoken. There were sounds of the wind lashing at the windows, the lapping of the waves outside, and the individual dribbles of water from the faucet.

Zoro's face remained stoic.

"I mean, I used to have blond hair, like yours… until I had to undergo a surgery, and it messed with my genetics…" His gaze shifted to the ground.

Sanji appeared speechless, panic welling up in his eyes. "Uh, I didn't-, I-" He nervously fumbled with his cigarette and the cool look on his face dropped to the ground. "That was really insensitive, I guess."

The dumb expression on the blond's face was too hilarious. Zoro began to chuckle, clutching his own stomach."You should see your own face in the mirror." He laughed harder when Sanji's pale features turned bright red. "You look so stupid with your curly brows."

_Curly brows..._

As soon as he said those taboo words, the blond snapped visibly. Crushing the cigarette in between his fingers, he stepped forward with a deadly facial expression. "Who are you calling  _curly brow_ , you damn bastard!" His leg lashed out like a whip, hurdling at Zoro at an unbelievably fast pace.

Just in the nick of time, Zoro dodged the swiping leg that went past his head like a baseball bat swinging a fast ball. He thought ' _what the fuck_ ' in a low-pitched, slow, and dramatic tone of voice like they do in action movies _._ But unfortunately for Zoro, as soon as Sanji's active foot hit the floor, the other leg swung and the heel struck him square in the chest, making him stumble backwards and land on his ass with a heavy thump.

"Shit," Zoro spat out the oxygen that was taken out of him, his ass throbbing from the harsh impact against the cold kitchen floor.

Grinning lopsidedly above Zoro's lying figure, Sanji asked "Had enough?" in the most cocky manner while tilting his head to the side. " _Ah_ , wait." The blond stopped in the midst of his tracks. "Shit." He began to shake his head. "I wasn't supposed to..." Slowly, he extended his arm out to assist the green haired man whom he had just knocked down. "Here."

Zoro boorishly stared at the hand offered to him and decidedly ignored it.

He was pissed off, as expected, but at the same time he was amused. No one, not even Kaku, has been able to knock him off his feet at a one-on-one combat match for about nine years now. Even as a young adult, Zoro was very proficient with swords and martial arts. There were only very few who could meet up to his standards and last for a couple of minutes. Those techniques the blond performed, it was  _different_ ; powerful yet so graceful, like a dancer who had developed his fighting techniques along with his ballet steps. But again, imagining the blond in tights, dancing around in colorful tutus did  _not_ suit the image Zoro was going for.

It  _did_ , however, make him want to rile up the blond a bit more.

"Save the fake kindness, curly. You caught me when I least expected it." Zoro patted himself down as he stood up, on both feet simultaneously with the help of his upper body strength. "I just didn't think you could  _actually_  kick," Zoro retorted with bite behind every word.

He was so eager to fight this man.

"Oho, so you think you can beat me in a fight?" His head tilting to the side again.

Zoro blinked.

How many years has it been since he last heard those challenging words that pushed him over the edge? His blood pumped in his ears and the excitement coursed through his veins. Screw formalities. Zoro wanted to see who was stronger. He wanted to pounce on the blond man and see what else the cook could do with his legs.

 _I want more! More!_ The little mischievous boy inside him screamed with delight.

"Crap, hold that thought!" Sanji shouted.

His arms went behind his back, impatiently tugging at the knot of his apron. He abandoned his crumpled peach colored apron on the kitchen table and without any further explanation he stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Zoro alone and confused.

"What the hell, cook!" The green haired man called out, a bit embarrassed for being indirectly rejected of their fight.

With a pout, Zoro shoved his hands into the pockets of his gray sweats that he woke up with. He dragged himself around the table, out of the kitchen, then into the living room where his swords were.

He noticed unfinished paintings clustered in the corners of the room and how none of them did any justice to the actual scenery he was seeing outside. The breathtaking view of the ocean glimmering underneath the gaze of the sun, which was almost peaking to its climax, was one of the most beautiful things nature exhibited. He was starting to figure out why this place was the blond's little 'getaway'. Everything was so relaxing. Though the place was messy, it felt homey. The scenery was something Zoro would like to last see before going into the trance of his meditation.

Sanji stormed out of the bedroom with a polka-dotted blue shirt that was half buttoned, a black dress pants with a belt that was only half way through the loops of the pants, and his fingers were still adjusting the black tie around his neck. "Mosshead, get dressed," the blond ordered before rushing into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Who are you calling mosshead!" Zoro called out angrily, stomping his foot like a child.

"I put your clothes on top of my bed! Just change into those!" His muffled tone shouted from the bathroom.

A tiny part of the swordsman wanted to rebel against the blond's demands like a teenager who was going through a 'stage', but another part of him knew it would be a futile attempt.

Zoro strolled down the hallway and entered the bedroom he woke up from. He carefully stepped around the piles of books and paintings and made his way to the bed where his black dress shirt and pants were. The ones he wore during his mission. Out of habit he messily threw the clothes that he peeled off of his body on top of the bed along with the crinkled blankets that he slept in. He then pulled on the clothes that smelled of detergent and flowers, unlike the night of his mission when his clothes had the scent of alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat from the strip club. His shoulder that was roughly patched aggravated him a bit so he was careful with how he pulled the shirt over his head.

Being alone, with no curly brow as a distraction, his thoughts roamed around freely. He wondered what happened to Kaku, or rather, what Kaku believed happened to Zoro. Did he believe that Zoro had died? If so, what was he going to do now? Sanji clearly offered the swordsman to remain with him until his shoulder is healed. But afterward, where would he go? If the organization truly believed that he was dead, there would be no need for him to go back. However, if they find any evidence that he's actually not dead then he would be tracked down and killed. Zoro is a very capable swordsman who is able to take down most of his opponents, but this organization has a variety of millions of capable fighter. If Zoro was marked, he knew he would be screwed to hell.

"Are you done changing?" Sanji asked while barging inside, holding a comb in his hand. The blond was in a suit, but unlike Zoro who still appeared to be a bodyguard even without a body to protect, he appeared rather casual.

"Yeah. Where are we going?"

Sanji sat on the bed and stretched his legs out in front of him. "We're going to take the train to my house. It's about thirty minutes from here." He told Zoro as he stretched out a cellphone in front of him. "Here, you can call whomever. I don't want to  _kidnap_  you, not that I would want to."

"Right."

Zoro observed the little android and slicked the screen over with his palm, simply staring at it.

"You're not going to call anyone?" Sanji questioned.

The thing was, Zoro had no one to call. He had no one at 'home' who would worry if he did go missing. He didn't have any friends who would randomly check up on him. He didn't even have a goddamn decent job that would worry if he went missing or not. So, who would he call? Zoro simply handed the cellphone back.

The blond didn't press the matter, which Zoro was thankful for. He  _really_ did not feel like explaining himself.

"Alright. Let's go, Zoro."

The blond grabbed the black wallet that was resting on top of the wooden dresser and put them into the outer layer of his jacket pocket. He was heavily layered and well dressed, like those men on fashion magazines. A polka-dotted blue shirt, layered with a vest, waistcoat, and a jacket, which had the same color as his trousers; black. This guy could literally walk into an investment company and no one would suspect a thing because his garments were formal enough; but at the same time, he could walk into a bar, have a couple of drinks and dance with girls, so that someone lucky enough could take apart those layers one by one that night.

Zoro shook his head.

There was no reason for him to observe the blond  _that_  intensely. He grabbed his swords, held it in his hands next to his waist, and the two were off.

"Oi, why are you in such a hurry?" He asked when Sanji was pacing in front of him, anxiously waiting for the elevator to come all the way up to the 32nd floor.

Sanji turned towards him with a hint of glimmer in his eyes. "Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you. I'm cooking for a group of friends tonight. I have to go grocery shopping, prepare, and other shit..." He trailed off, placing a finger on his soft lips.

The swordsman wondered why this person was so carefree. Was he that confident enough of his abilities that if Zoro did happen to turn out to be some ruthless murderer, he could take him on? Why was he allowing Zoro, a complete stranger, into his house and introducing him to his group of friends?

"What do you like to eat?" Sanji asked when the two were in the silent confinement of the elevator.

"I don't know. Anything."

The blond pouted and withdrew his hands into the warmth of his pockets. In addition to this disappointed look, a hint of irritation could be seen. He exasperated, "There has to be something. Come on! Anything off the top of your head will do."

"I don't know. I like Japanese food."

"You do?"

The two men walked outside into the chilly air that nipped at any exposed skin, speedily pacing along side by side. "I'm actually not that familiar with Japanese cuisine. I know how to make some simple dishes like rice balls-"

"'I love rice balls," Zoro interrupted the man, reminiscing his childhood memories.

"You do?"

The swordsman rolled his eyes, "Che, you said that twice already." He glimpsed over to his side to measure the blond's reaction to his words.

Surprisingly, this time Sanji did not blow up; instead, he shyly scratched his head and tried to fix the blond hair the wind was rustling. How absolutely unpredictable his responses were. One minute he was throwing a fit like a child would, and the next he was acting like a reasonable person.

"Is your shoulder okay?" He asked, pointing at Zoro's shoulder that was buried underneath the layers of clothes.

"Yeah"

"I tried to follow the doctor's advice and follow the patterns of bandaging, but it was my first time and you were asleep, so it came out shitty." When he spoke, warm air escaped from his mouth; and at times, Zoro noticed, he would casually lick his lips to moisten them. "You bled so much, I'm wondering how you're still fucking alive to be honest."

Zoro smirked from that comment. He did have a stubborn streak against the face of death. "How long have I been sleep anyways?"

The blond furrowed his brows towards Zoro, "Like four days top, I think."

"What the hell. That long? No wonder I was starving when I woke up this morning."

Sanji cooed, "Aw, and here I was thinking that my delicious cooking scent was the Prince Charming to your Snow White."

"I think your shitty Christmas music had more of a punch than your cooking."

The cook rolled his eyes. "Hey, stick it up your yours, man." He glanced over to Zoro's side. "By the way, wouldn't you get arrested for having swords outside?"

"Yeah, probably." Zoro was holding two swords in his right hand, in between him and the blond, and the third one in his other hand. "I have a long case for it but it's probably lost somewhere."

Sanji groaned. "I still can't believe how indifferent you are from being shot. Any normal person would have shitted their pants by now and locked themselves in their houses."

The subway was in sight. There were some stores like Dunkin' Donuts, Frankie's hair stylist, and CVS nearby. A person in a microfiber hooded jacket was standing outside, blocking the entryway to the train, trying to pass out fliers to passing by strangers. Most ignored him and continued their way. But as Sanji walked past the man, he grabbed a paper and murmured a 'thanks' under his breath.

"Huh, a dental healthcare."

_Strange..._

The dissonances of the city submerged and were replaced with the sounds of engines of trains when the two slowly entered underground. A musky smell welcomed them into the tunnels and few bums were seen, sleeping, facing away from any sympathetic passerby's. And the blond who conveniently had two metrocards, swiped them both in, which Zoro was thankful for— again.

"I'm still wondering why you're so damn nice to me. You have to have some ulterior motive behind all of this," Zoro said while the two waited for the train, squinting his eyes a bit.

"What?" Sanji screeched before bubbling with laughter. "If you think knocking you off your feet was nice, then you lived some fucked up life."

Zoro had to snort at that. How fucked up was his life that he can't even tell the difference between a stranger's kindness from his own suspicions. " _I'm telling you_ , that was pure luck. I can beat your ass with my eyes closed."

"Yeah, whatever. Didn't take you to be a  _sore loser._ "

"I'm not a-"

His voice was extinguished by the train. A door, one out of many, came to a halt in front of them and the two doors slid open. Inside the train, it was semi-crowded. Most people were sitting down but a group of teenage girls were standing by the two sliding doors that they stood in front of.

"-sore loser," The green haired man finished, but the blond's attention had already been hampered with by the sight of these young girls. He was no longer paying any attention to Zoro's comments.

The door slid closed behind them.

While the blond made his way over to the girls, Zoro went further in to grab onto one of the silver poles. " _Ah, my fair flowers_ , you are young yet  _so_  beautiful. It  _must_  be fate that we  _happened_  to be on the same train at the same time. We are only  _bound_  to exchange our numbers before continuing with our lonely days." The blond had this pained expression on his face as he melodramatically performed these lines, throwing his hands up in the air.

_Talk about a bad Shakespeare._

Zoro cringed inside with embarrassment, something that Sanji was apparently immune to. Not only were the three girls giggling in hilarity but few others surrounding them were as well. He strolled away from the blond and casually made his way to the next silver pole, which was halfway across the cart. He could no longer hear the conversation of the group, but from what he was seeing, the girls were smiling and waving their hands in front of them shyly as if rejecting Sanji's requests; as a result, Sanji scratched his head sheepishly and bowed his head before making his way back to the swordsman.

"Yo," Sanji greeted him casually.

"What was that?" The green haired man asked the man, noting that some people were eavesdropping to their conversation.

In a monotonic tone he snapped, "Picking up chicks, what else?" He was grinding his teeth, presumably a form of habit from having a cigarette in his mouth at all times.

Zoro snorted before mumbling, " _That's_ picking up chicks?"

He didn't know much about picking up chicks himself, nor has he ever been interested in the opposite sex enough to throw himself at them, but he was a hundred percent sure that he would've done a more effective job than the blond had.

Sanji was quick to jump and defend his man pride, which Zoro shut down immediately with his sarcastic remarks.

The rest of the train ride consisted of arguments and serious conversations about why Zoro should always guard his food around Sanji's friends. "This little guy eats like an elephant, I'm telling you. I don't even know where it all goes. One minute he's kind of bloated around the waist and then  _boom_ , it all disappears." It was kind of comedic to see the blond all serious about a silly topic like this. "One time-" His next words were cut off and soon forgotten.

"Excuse me?"

The two men were interrupted by the group of girls that Sanji had flirted with half an hour ago. Sanji's expression turned into a composed one— with a soft, welcoming smile at the tips of his lips. "What can I do for you, lovely ladies? Perhaps, you're here to take me up on my offer?" He was awfully suave for someone who acted like a total fool before.

The girls giggled, more so  _at_  the blond than as a response. Then they began shooting curious glances toward Zoro.

_Uh oh..._

"Hey, you should go ask right now," the brunette whispered, lightly urging her friend forward.

A pretty girl with jet black hair and natural rosy cheeks thrusted a paper in front of her, shyly murmuring, "Here is my number." She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. "I like your green hair."

"Uh... Thanks..."

She waved to him before her and her friends exited the train. "Call her!" the brunette yelled, looking over her shoulder before the doors slid shut. When the train began to move, a heavy silence and the sounds of the engine were the only things that remained. Zoro looked over to his side to see what the blond had to say about all of this.

As expected, Sanji was glaring at Zoro with a pout, like a pitiful dog on a rainy day. "Damn you..."

Sanji shoved his hands into his pockets before turning his head away, away from Zoro and toward the windows where the lights shone. Since the train traveled above ground level, they could see the buildings of New York City stretched out far and beyond. 

And just for a second, as the blond was pouting with his hands tucked inside his pockets, the word "cute" emerged within Zoro's thoughts.

 _Wait what?_   he frowned with a sudden realization. 

"Let's get off," Sanji told him, tugging his shirt, pulling him out into the fresh air. The blond shuddered as his teeth clenched, "Ugh, so cold. Damn you, mother nature."

He was right. It  _was_  cold. But Zoro's face was warming up for some hell of a reason.


	3. Similar Vibrations

"It's not much, but make yourself at home."

When the doors swung open, it revealed a very stylish designing of the living-dining room, which connected to the kitchen. The basic colors of black and white were the main components of the room; but there were also colorful accents, bold colors that enhanced the overall impact of simplicity that made this place so modern. There were no unnecessary decorations or paintings that made the room appear cluttered or messy, and the furniture's were kept to a minimum. One white couch with black and white cushions on top, a sleek coffee table with a book on top, a polished cabinet, and a large flat screen TV above those cabinets.

Sanji threw his keys on top of the coffee table and his jacket to rest on one of the sofa arms. "I gotta start cooking."

The open space in here felt incredible, and perhaps it was an illusion created by the plain designing of the interior, but the only thing that ran through Zoro's mind was how this space could easily turn into a training room.

"Oi, mosshead, why are you just standing there?" 

The blond chuckled as he began walking across the living-dining room, heading for the kitchen that had a completely different atmosphere. The kitchen was made up of dark brown cabinetry with the grain of the wood peeking through, rich brown wood floors, marble island counters, a mosaic tile backsplash above the stoves, and rows of gray bar stools lined up aligned with the counter.

 _It's not much, but make yourself at home._ Those words replayed inside the swordsman's head.

"Shitty cook," he mumbled.

"Huh? What did you say?" Sanji asked, already in the kitchen, typing an apron around his waist. "I can't hear you. Come closer."

"I just said that you're a  _shitty cook_ , that's all." Smirk at the end, taunting the blond from across the room.

"What did you say, bastard?" The cook asked, hint of venom behind the tone of his voice, but it was obvious that he bit the hook Zoro threw out on purpose. He slammed the refrigerator door closed with his foot. "I'll kick your ass, say that again."

"You heard me,  _shit_  cook! I barely kept your food down this morning," he lied.

"Wanna go at it?" Sanji was coming closer, prancing his way towards Zoro, wild eyed and gritting his teeth. "I'll fuck you up," he slurred in a gangster-like tone, like one of those mafias that Zoro had encountered a few years ago. He was smiling.

 _Yes, I want to fight!_  The child inside of Zoro screamed with delight.

Zoro stood firm with his feet spread out, prepared for those legs this time.

"Come at me!"

Sanji began to move, as lithe and graceful as a snake; and Zoro couldn't help but admire the hidden strength that the blond demonstrated with each movement. It was an undeniable fact that he knew how to fight and control the destructive powers that were stored in his calves.

_Oh, shit!_

The blond whirled one of his legs followed by the other, twirling them around like a fan; Zoro dodged the ones he could and blocked the ones he couldn't with the backs of his forearms. The blond's hands were rooted to the slick floor. The stability of his upper body was firm while his legs were constantly in motion, and it was all too impressive for Zoro who had never even seen such a fighting style before.

"Take that!" Another blow at Zoro's chest, who almost fell back but didn't.

"Fuck you!" The familiar feeling of exhilaration swept through him once more. He hadn't had this much fun since Kuina had been alive, all those years ago.

Sanji was on his feet again, as graceful as an acrobat, or a dancer.

"Stand still, damn mosshead." There was a playful and impish grin on his face. He was having fun too, Zoro could tell.

The blond did a handstand, with his long legs straight up in the air, and this time right in front of the swordsman. The flap of his apron was upside down, like a woman's skirt, except there was nothing revealing underneath. Sanji softly chuckled before one of his legs sliced through the air, vertically striking down, aiming straight for Zoro's head. Zoro tried to leap back to dodge but he could only sway to the side to avoid fatal damage. He wasn't quick enough. He received the full impact of the blond's foot on his shoulder, the shoulder that did not have a punctured wound.

If Sanji had not took his shoes off before coming inside, the impact would have shattered Zoro's bones; but only a bruise was to be expected later on.

Zoro gritted his teeth.

 _He's so strong,_ he admitted silently.

While the blond was lolling his head to the side again, cockily grinning so, Zoro managed to slam into him, a full body slam, and managed to topple Sanji off of his feet. "Eh!" The blond's poised expression quickly switched into a surprised one as he toppled over. To secure his win, Zoro strapped Sanji's arms above his head firmly against the ground, and dug his right knee into his chest. But it was easier said than done with Sanji flailing like a fish and growling at him like a rabid beast.

"You're so fucking heavy, get the hell off of me!" The blond groused, thrashing beneath Zoro.

The swordsman's lips hovered over Sanji's, their breaths mingling. He could smell the cook's breath, scent of cigarettes and peppermint, thyme and apples, coffee and Jasmine tea. Combinations that oddly had an alluring effect on the swordsman.

"Hell no," he growled into the blond's ear. He imagined an imaginary scoreboard and points shooting up under his name, indicating that he had won this round.

Sanji smirked, tearing a hole into that newly built-up pride of Zoro's.

"Stupid."

 _What?_ Zoro was taken back by the man's sudden nonchalant behavior.

Then he knew.

 _Shit! His legs!_ He forgot to pin down the man's main weapons. It was like forgetting to take Zoro's swords away from him.  _How fucking stupid, indeed._  Sanji's knees jabbed Zoro right in the back; and feeling like two metal bars had just swung straight into his body, he loosened his grip on the blond's hands— just a little, but enough for Sanji to slip below him, free from the swordsman's hold.

 _Damn!_  But it was expected! And admittedly, he had hoped that Sanji was strong enough to figure his way out of Zoro's grip.

"Ugh," Zoro groaned, rolling onto his back, staring at the blond who had already gotten on his feet. He felt pain everywhere— both his shoulders and a focal point on his back, where there was a throbbing pulse.

Sanji already had a rising smoke above his lips, breathing heavily from the recent exertion.

"Sorry, man. I forgot you were injured." The flap of his apron had followed the rules of gravity and was below his hips again. "Here." His hand was offered for Zoro to take, stretched out in front of him, his fingers pointing towards Zoro's lying form.

"Call it a truce between us?"

 _Hell no_ , Zoro wanted to hiss like a violated cat, but the inner child in him that had enjoyed and appreciated the fight reached out to grasp the blond's hand. He gripped it tightly, fingers wrapping around the lean but masculine hand, feeling the heat radiating off of his palm.

"Yeah, whatever," he grouched.

Then, with the blond's help, he was pulled up to his feet.

Sanji grinned before strolling back to the kitchen, freeing his hand from Zoro's tight clutch. His jeans wiggled as his fingers hovered over the band of his pants, clutching the denim fabric to tug it over his hips since the width of the jeans were too wide for his small, tight ass.

"You know, you're pretty okay at fighting. Where did you learn to fight like that?" The blond asked, seemingly interested in the edges of Zoro's personal life. He stood behind the counter, fumbling with some round ingredients, facing Zoro.

Zoro snorted.

If he was simply 'okay' at fighting, then the rest of the human population were helpless fetuses crawling on their fucking knees. "I trained by myself. My specialty is swordsmanship though, not that boxing shit I just did." He trained with Kaku along with the rest of the professional fighters from the organization, not that Sanji needed to know that.

"Swords, huh?" Sanji was thoughtlessly cutting the onion into pieces after he had peeled the skin. "You have three, right?"

"Yeah."

The blond scooped the square pieces into the cup of his hands and poured them into a giant plastic bowl. "Do you stick one up your ass while using it? Why do you have three?"

"I put one in my mouth," Zoro stated.

Sanji stupidly snickered, air fuming from his nose unevenly. "That's what she said." He was grinning at the tomatoes he was chopping up, his golden strands blocking the swordsman's view of his eyes.

A tiny smirk began to play along at the tips of Zoro's lips, but he held back; instead, he flipped the upturned mouth of his into a frown. "You sound like a teen."

"I'm damn close to that age too, what do you expect?"

Zoro raised a brow, "How old are you?"

"I'm nineteen, you?"

A hitch of silence.

"I'm nineteen, too" Zoro stated, unconvinced. He turned his eyes on the blond's face, where he could clearly see the outline of his lean jaws and pink lips— with the most ideal cupid's bow and straight, whitened teeth. How could a face like that be the same age as his own? A sudden flare of competitiveness sparked within him. "When's your birthday? I bet that I'm older than you," Zoro said, cockily, and smirked.

The blond pursed his lips as he swirled the mixed and thoroughly chopped vegetables into the frying pan, cracking an egg into the mix. "March second, I'm a pretty early bird of the year. You?"

Ah, _damn._

"November eleventh."

His birthday was an information about himself that he had preserved after all of these years—though there had been no one to celebrate it with.

The sound of a velvety chuckle filled the kitchen, "You were born late inthe year. Why did you think you were older than me?"

"Because you look younger than me."

"Just like that, huh."

"Yeah."

From where he sat, Zoro was able to see the lean figure of Sanji's body, moving in a fluid motion to combine the various types of flavors.

His curiosity piqued when Sanji began to pour unusual ingredients into the pot and wondered why the blond was using these ingredients to cook for friends. "What the hell are you making?" he asked

"I don't know, mosshead, but it's going to be good. I've been into bizarre foods lately and I want to see how well I can cook them. Even if it turns out bad, Luffy still enjoys it. He literally eats like a trash can," he chuckled.

The first thing Zoro noticed about Sanji was that he really loved talking about his friends. Whether it be about the guy who eats five meals a day or about those two beautiful girls he loved so much,

He mentally slapped himself.

 _What am I still doing here?_ a part of him whispered in the back of his mind, attempting to remind him of his own reality that was completely different from the one the blond was having.  _Just until his friends come,_  he reminded himself. He wanted to meet the cook's friends.

"What time are they coming?"

Sanji's lips fondled the filter of his cigarette that he had placed in between his teeth a few seconds ago. "Probably six, maybe seven, but some of them are really tardy, so around seven-thirty."

The clock on the wall, across from where he sat, read 3:37 P.M., so he silently wondered what he was going to do until then. He was damn bored. The only entertainment around here was the cook, who was cooking and not fighting with him. His body itched for that moment of action again, for that frame of time to replay over and over, because it was so fucking exhilarating and got his adrenaline running. It had been so many years since he last felt this type of challenge, kicking him right in the gut— almost literally. But right now, he could only strike a conversation about the blond's friends to keep himself busy.

"How many are there?"

"Luffy, Ace, Usopp, Chopper, Franky, Brook, and my three lovely ladies— Kaya, Nami and Robin." He paused to think, "So that's like eight people."

"Nine," Zoro corrected.

"Oh yeah, so nine people," he said absentmindedly. "But sometimes Chopper, Brook, and Robin can't come cuz they lead busy lives."

_Doesn't matter because I don't know any of them..._

"How are you going to introduce me? The guy who you found dead in the middle of the night?" He snorted, then smelt the delicious scent of something wafting over his way, tickling his nostrils.

 _Oh god,_ he moaned silently.

"Half dead," Sanji corrected this time. "And if they ask any further, then-"

_Then, what?_

It had occurred to Zoro, more or less, that this was an unusual situation; that someone this wealthy (in reference to Sanji's luxurious and significantly large house) would ever allow a complete stranger into his house and meet his friends. Sure, he could have a benevolent heart, whatever that means, but everybody had their own suspicions, and it was just plain weird that Sanji did not have any.

"-you're one of my customers," the blond concluded before finishing up another plate full of his own creations- a fried mix of octopus, rice, and a red mystery sauce drizzled on top. "You wanna try it?" he asked with vivid enthusiasm, freely showing pride in his own work of art. An art that did not immortalize, but brought a certain satisfaction to those who ate it.

"Yeah, hand it over."

He dragged the fine glassy plate against the marble island counter with his thumb and index finger, and brought it right beneath his nose. The scent drifting into his nostrils smelt absolutely sublime. As soon as his spoon entered the cavern of his mouth and spilled the content on his tongue, the flavors exploded. It caused him to experience the highest and the tastiest ecstasy man had ever known. A groan, half a moan, escaped his lips. The chewy and spicy octopus went well with the soft, salty flavors of the white rice.

"How is it?" the blond asked, enthusiastically, and gave him a charming quizzical smile of his.

Zoro avoided Sanji's blue and piercing gaze, which stared at him all excited like a newborn pup out of its mother's womb.

"It's okay." The understatement of the year, the fucking century.

The blond grinned, then gave him another plate. "I guess there is a reason why I'm keeping you around, mosshead."

"Oh, so you're finally going to answer my previous question about why you're so damn nice to me?" Zoro teased with a snarky grin. "Even though I'm a total stranger who you've never met before."

"I told you," Sanji drawled out the words with a raised brow, "that this is not benignity, though it has a nice ring to it." He paused as a scowl washed over his expression, "I think the reason why I've decided to take care of you is because you're like a pet to me. A little ball of moss. A  _marimo_ ," the blond cooed.

Zoro bared his teeth, "Bastard, I'll kill you!"

The cook popped his middle finger up and held it in front of him; a lean, proud finger sticking up high in the air. "Stick your third sword up your ass,  _marimo_ ," he purred in a honeyed and taunting tone of voice. "I'm sure it'll fit better there than in your mouth."

When Sanji flicked his eye towards him as he said those words, the most uncanny response occurred in his body.

Zoro's body lit up like a fire, specifically his groins. His salty dry lips roughly rubbed against one another as his wet tongue slicked over them, and he almost flushed under the pressing gaze of the blond's as he unintentionally slackened his jaw, unscrewing his mouth to gawp like a goldfish.

"Ah, damn. I don't have anymore sugar!" the blond switched the subject with a dramatized gasp, like those women from 1920's black and white movies. "Take care of the house, marimo. I'm going to go grocery shopping."

He swiftly untied the knots of his apron and replaced the external layer with his jacket, quickly throwing a gray scarf around his neck. He grabbed his wallet and keys from the coffee table and headed for the door. "I'll be back in ten minutes, probably," the blond yelled before slamming the door behind him, leaving the confused and slightly stimulated Zoro behind.

The slam of the door jolted Zoro from his trance-like state, which triggered him to shout, "I'll make sure to steal every valuable thing you have!"

Of course, the blond was already out the door by then, so his empty words simply hung there with a terrible silence, which brought a sense of solitariness to his chest. The empty space that had appeared so picturesque and lavish initially had shed its ideal image, leaving only a house that was  _way_ too big for a single person to live in. Then again, he had always lived a life of solitude, so this wasn't too much of a difference to him.

For the ten minutes the blond promised he would take, Zoro finished his food, washed the dishes, and lazily sprawled out on the couch, with the heels of his feet resting on one of the arms of the sofa. He closed his eyes, and waited until he could hear the small click of the door opening and a shivering blond noisily walking in with groceries in hand.

But he dozed off instead.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The second time Zoro woke up at the presence of the cook, it was practically identical to the first. He was cooking up a grand meal with a shitty, tacky Christmas tune playing in the background.

It was classic.

"Hey, it's fine man. I know you have to deal with Kaya and her family about the whole relationship thing," he heard Sanji speaking on the phone. "Yeah, as usual Chopper, Brook, and Robin can't come either." He paused respectively for the person on the other line to respond. "I know," he whispered. "Look, I can't talk about that right now, I just hope Luffy doesn't flip shit when he gets here."

 _Luffy..._ The kid who eats like an elephant.

"Stop apologizing, man. I have to go now. Just don't try to get me out of it because it'll be harder for me if you guys keep doing this," he said, sternly, before hanging up the call. "So, Luffy, Ace, Nami, and... Zoro," Sanji listed under his breath as the tune of ' _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_ ' quietly played behind his head from where the swordsman sat.

Zoro peeked his green head above the couch to steal a curious glimpse of the cook, who was propped against the kitchen counter for support, with his back slouched and his chin resting on the cup of his palm. In front of Sanji, stretched out across the extended counter, there were endless rows of plates and pots, covered with plastic wraps; with various combinations of flavors perfuming the air, and the pampering cook standing beside them.

It was no wonder that that Luffy kid had a huge appetite.

Sanji heaved a heavy sigh of stress before mumbling, "I hope Usopp gets the problem solved before Christmas," under his breath

 _Usopp..._ The guy who profusely tells lies.

Awkwardly, the swordsman stood steadily on his feet, hand rubbing the back of his neck, as a form of habit from when his neck used to creak after long hours of meditation. He cleared his throat loudly, and the blond who had been talking out loud stared at him in surprise, mouth agape and pupils dilated. Really, he shouldn't be  _that_ surprised that Zoro had caught him talking to himself. The clock adjacent to the high-tech radio mechanic read 6:07 P.M., which meant that he had slept for about three hours.

"Hey," the cook greeted him while shakily lifting himself off the counter. "Nice nap?"

 _Hell of a nap_ , Zoro wanted to respond. He could not remember the last time he had felt so relaxed, sleeping with another's presence so close to him. As a child, he had trained himself to always be half-awake and half-asleep, an exhausting technique that requires a lot more nap time, but it had saved his ass so many times as there were many traitors and infiltrators in the organization.

"It was okay," he replied instead.

"Right," Sanji said dully, unconvinced.

The blond grinned like an idiot, sending a delightful chill up Zoro's spine, branching out through the nerves in his brain and shooting explosions of sensations to every inch of his body.

"It seems that only three of my friends can make it tonight. Two of them are the D brothers, and they eat like pigs, so I don't have to worry about wasting food. Also, my lovely angel, whose image cannot be captured because of her overwhelming beauty, Nami, is also coming tonight." The blond's expression fell into one of those dreamy, perverted smiles that only lonely old men had at the thought of a young girl.

" _Ahh,_ the sweet thought of Nami makes me shiver in joy."

Zoro cringed inwardly as the tingling sensations dulled and died, with an image of a bird falling out of a tree in his head.

The blond's face dropped when his gaze fell upon the swordsman, who sat at the edge of the gray bar stool, as though the sad reality from his fantasies had dawned upon him when he saw Zoro.

Sanji let out a disappointed sigh.

_Annoying._

"Since we have an hour to waste, let's get to know each over a cup of wine," Sanji suggested as he extracted two fine wine glasses and a tall wine bottle, labeled 'Pinot Grigio', from the cabinets. "This is the most selling wine in my restaurant, so I took one to try it myself."

"Isn't that illegal?" he asked as Sanji unwrapped the foil of the bottle and removed the cork with a loud pop.

"It doesn't matter because I own that restaurant," the cook responded, casually, bringing the bottle closer to where Zoro sat.

The green haired man raised a curious brow, recalling that the cook was only nineteen like himself. The two were both young, but Zoro was already high in ranking of an assassinating organization and the blond was the owner of a restaurant.

 _That explains this house_ , Zoro thought.

Zoro's fingers fiddled with the stem of the wine glass as the cook gracefully tipped the wine bottle into two wine glasses, carefully pouring about 4 or 5 ounces into each cup. Then the cook raised the aperture of the bottle and wiped down the neck with a clean white cloth, gracefully performing those duties like a very experienced waiter.

"You're young though," Zoro flatly stated as his fingers tapped against the base of his wine glass.

"I mean, to be fair, you're too young to get shot like that," he pointed at the swordsman's wound with his outstretched pinky.

He had a fair point.

To drink, the blond encased the transparent glass between his lips, and his scarlet tongue passing between his teeth lapped at the light colored liquid. Sanji closed his eyes to enhance and savor the flavor of the wine; in contrast, Zoro gulped the liquid at once, and hardly felt it going down his throat.

He hungrily drank the view of Sanji, who swiveled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing every last bit...

Zoro groaned as another stir aroused in his abdomen.  _What's wrong with me?_

The blond awkwardly cleared his throat. "So," he drawled out as if he was trying to figure out what to say within that split second. "Why three?" In a high-strung manner, Sanji avoided the swordsman's gaze and instead fixated his gaze on the wine in his hand, which was half consumed. "Your swords, I mean." His visible curled eyebrow was twitching like crazy.

_Damn, that eyebrow is weird._

Whatever weird phenomenon happened to that thing, Zoro did not want to know.

The swordsman squinted his eyes a bit and his vision zoomed out of Sanji's eyebrow like a camera lens. To answer the blond's question, Zoro had to think all the way back to his past, when he was a simple child with a single road as a thought process, with nothing in his mind except for a certain little girl.

From his dim recollections of her, his lips curved into a smile.

 _Zoro,_ she called out, sternly, from his memories.

"Well, I used to believe that having more swords meant having more power," the swordsman said with softened eyes; the image of the black haired girl still flashing in his mind. "Stupid, right?"

"Yeah," Sanji responded without a beat.

Then the blond began to crack up, a boyish laugh escaping his lips as he held his stomach in his hands. The visible corner of his eye crinkling and a large grin outstretching from ear to ear as he bit down on his bottom lip, his tongue encased and hidden behind the rows of his straight teeth. Sanji wrapped his fingers around the cold exterior of the wine bottle; and this time less elegantly, much like an unruly pirate, tipped it into Zoro's cup. "Don't get drunk," he warned, with a hint of challenge in his eyes, as he filled the cup all the way.

The swordsman snorted, "I don't get drunk."

Sanji leaned in closer, "Oh,  _really_?" His interest seemingly piqued.

The swordsman snorted because in his whole life span, even as a small teenager who'd just attained the habit of drinking, not a single person had been able to defeat him. Drinking, even more than swordsmanship, was something he was confident at.

"Swirly brow, can  _you_  hold your liquor?" Zoro asked.

The blond guffawed, with his jaw snapped open and a tint of rosy pink brushed on his cheeks. "Hell no." He placed his forefinger in front of Zoro, who saw the blond's perfectly trimmed cuticles right in between his crossed eyes. "My dear, Nami, can hold her liquor and she's a  _lady_. A hell of a one at that. If you guys had a drinking contest, she'd beat you without a beat."

The swordsman scrutinized Sanji with a flare of intrigue.

"Doubt it."

One glass of wine. One glass was enough to get this blond slightly tipsy and put a blooming blush on his cheeks. As for Zoro, to feel a remote buzz, it would take at least four bottle of wine, laid next to each other in shot arrangements.

Sanji tilted his head to the side in wonder, his eyes narrowed with curiosity. "By the way, should I ask why you carry around swords in the first place?"

"No."

"Why not? You might turn out to be a serial killer," the blond pressed with a smirk, clearly poking fun at the matter, without knowing the fact that Zoro is actually an  _assassin_  who kills people. The fact of the matter was not so far off from Sanji's presumptions, though not as a hobby as he had thought it out to be.

An uncomfortable guilt probed at all ends of his chest.  _I don't want to lie to him, but I can't risk telling him the truth._

But luckily, as though the universe had heard his silent plea, a young man's voice called out from the other side of the door.

" _Oi, Sanji_ "

Simultaneously there were hard, hollow knuckles frantically tapping against the door and the bell buzzing repeatedly.

" _Ah_ , my friends are here," Sanji announced.


	4. What happened last night?

When Zoro opened his eyes again, he was in a dim setting with only the silhouette of furniture in sight, and a thin body wrapped around his waist, tightly clutching the hem of Zoro's shirt into the small balls of his hands. The swordsman flicked his gaze on the boy with raven hair, with his drool sticking his cheeks to the hard floor, his head snuggled under Zoro's arm, murmuring 'food' and 'Sanji' under his breath.

_Dammit, Luffy!_

The green haired man pulled himself away from the boy who wore his straw hat even to his sleep, pushing his sticky mouth away with the flat of his palm, grunting slightly when he found the task more difficult than expected. When he finally got those lanky arms around his waist loose, he quickly jumped to his feet so the young boy would not be able to catch him in his tight grip again. Zoro saw that Ace was latched onto Luffy's ankles and that Nami was nowhere in sight; she probably took advantage of the situation and slept on Sanji's comfortable bed; and speaking of the blond, he was also nowhere in sight either.

The digital clock beneath the television screen read 3:27 A.M., which told him that Sanji could not be  _that_ far away when it was so late at night, or so early in the morning.

Zoro strode around the spacious and dim room, used his keen senses to avoid tripping over empty beer bottles and plastic martini cups, and saw a thin gray smoke rising outside the sliding transparent door that led to the back porch. The green haired man lightly tiptoed around the couch to not disturb those asleep. He slipped between the small crack he slid open for himself to meet the chilly night air and the heavy smog of nicotine Sanji was blowing out.

"Hey, couldn't sleep?" Zoro asked, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

The cold air nipping at his skin brought out goosebumps on his bare arms and his teeth to clatter noisily.

Startled by the sudden baritone voice, Sanji tensed up and clenched the filter of his cigarette between his two fingers.

"Zoro," he realized as the motion sensor lit above the swordsman's head, illuminating the small perimeter and making the green hair more visible. There was a hitch of silence before he spoke again, initiating his sentence with a nervous chuckle, "I couldn't sleep with Luffy's stupid foot digging into my nostrils and my throat was itching for a cigarette, how about you?"

The green haired man snickered with good humor as he crossed his hairless arms over his chest, "I  _also_ couldn't sleep because Luffy was slobbering all over me, using me as a body pillow and shit."

Sanji narrowed his eyes, distantly staring off into the darkness, "You know, even when I think about it real hard, I still can't remember how we all ended up on the floor instead of pulling out the sleeping bags from my closet."

"Yeah, you got pretty drunk after  _four_ glasses of wine," he taunted. "You can't hold your liquor for shit."

And it was true.

While Zoro was downing swig after swig of rum, Sanji was acting like a fool, with a half glass of wine in his hand, spinning like a drunkard and giggling about having a big fat crush on Nami ever since high school.

"Shut the fuck up," the blond growled.

He rested his elbows against the porch railing as he blew out the smoke into the night through his puckered lips.

"This headache is fucking  _killing_ me. I don't even remember half the things I did last night, mind filling in the blanks for me?"

Zoro nodded slowly, intrigued by the blond's blank eyes and relaxed posture. But the light bulb above them dimmed when it could not detect anymore movements, leaving the two men with a dawning silence that only their voices could fill. Sanji's request was easy since Zoro had been sober last night. Since he did not know which memories were missing from Sanji's head in the night's busy events, he decided to tell it from the very top.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

Zoro remained motionless, his butt grounded on the gray bar stool while Sanji jumped to his feet to jog toward the door. The blond's expression cracked into a wide grin. Sanji's feet only touched the ground a few times while sprinting due to his undeniably long legs, almost hovering over the floors, before he came into a screeching halt before the door. Sanji pulled the door knob impatiently, swung open the entryway to reveal a tall, built man next to a shorter male with a leaner build; and behind the two male figures, there was a tall woman in wedges, with an extreme hourglass figure that was noticeable even beneath her puffy winter wear.

The blond instantly had hearts bulging out of his eye sockets.

"Nami, my darling," he cooed as he cunningly wrapped his arm around her bare shoulders to guide her inside, pushing through the two males, as though she did not know the direction from the doorway to the expanse of the interior.

"You look beautiful tonight,  _as always_."

 _What an idiot_ , Zoro thought as he visibly rolled his eyes.

The red haired woman glanced up with her bright auburn eyes and coyly smiled. "Thanks, Sanji. You are looking handsome tonight, as well."

The hearts in the idiot's eyes popped out as his jaws slacked and his mouth dropped, completely merciless against the woman who had him wrapped around her manicured fingers.

"Sanji!"

The small guy jumped on the cook, who had launched from the doorway, and wrapped his legs around his waist, pressing his round head against Sanji's chest.

His skinny arms pulled them close into a friendly hug. "I missed you!" he cheerfully mumbled into the blond's chest, between his buttoned up shirt.

"Hey, Luffy," Sanji greeted as he disheveled the young man's raven hair, looking down at the boy with a playful smirk.

From behind the blond, who had a monkey bundled around his body, another man with raven hair came in. In comparison to Luffy, the big ol' eater whom Zoro had expected to be big and heavily built, this one actually had a much larger build than Luffy and freckles all over his defined, handsome features.

"Yo, Sanji."

He had a husky and confident tone of voice, as well as a smile that matched Luffy's, almost identical as though they were brothers (which he found out that they are).

It was uncanny how ecstatic and enthusiastic Sanji was, like a mongrel whose owner had just returned from a long trip overseas.

"Oi, cook," Zoro called out all the way from the kitchen.

He observed that all of the groups' goofy smiles had melted into their features, immediately replaced by serious ones, except for Luffy's whose eyes only burned with confusion.

_What's taking them so long?_

"Oi!" he called out again, but a bit louder than the first time.

The group, except for Luffy, had turned to stare at him with curious and stern eyes before making their way to the kitchen.

The first one to greet him was the woman with red hair, that was more orange than the color red that painters used on their canvases.

"Hello," she said, with an aloof and casual smile.

She dug her forefinger into the heel of her long platform wedges, to toss the shoes aside before stepping into the kitchen.

The next person came in, the man with freckled face and raven hair. "Hey man, I'm Ace," he waved his hand over his head, "Your name is Zoro, right?"

"Yeah. Hey... man."

Zoro strolled over to Ace to firmly shake his hand, which had a firm grip and calluses, unlike the woman's, whose hands were soft and slender.

 _This feels oddly formal_ , he thought.

The reality was completely different than the expectations he had built from the stories Sanji had told about them and his first impression of them just a moment ago.

The cook inquisitively glanced to his side where Luffy was standing, whose eyes were completely engrossed in the swordsman.

" _Huh._ "

The boy grabbed his chin with the squeeze of his first two fingers, one leg stretched out horizontally by his side to support the balance of his body tilting along with his head.

"Green…"

A grin tugged at both ends of the swordsman's lips. There was an amicable aura about this young man with unwavering wide eyes that Zoro immediately took a liken to, since there weren't many men or women out there who could hold a steady gaze with Zoro. Many had told him that he had this sort of a demonic aura surrounding him, making him unapproachable and often feared at first sight.

"Yeah, it's natural," he replied with a slight nod of his head before the boy could structure the question himself.

Nami nudged the boy with her elbow as if to remind him, "Luffy, Sanji made us tons of food."

In a comical manner, Luffy bounced lightly back on his feet and clapped his hands in jagged movements, eyes beaming with childish excitement.

"Food! Food! Food!"

He raved as he trudged around the marble counter with his tumultuous footsteps, clapping his hands after the end of every word.

But before Luffy could even touch the food, Sanji swiftly kicked him out of the way, with a deadpan expression and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Wait till Nami takes a seat, rubber brat. Ladies are always first," he groused as he pulled out a stool for Nami to sit in.

 _What the hell?_ Zoro thought as he heard a loud thud.

But it seemed that the group was already used to the cook's violent behaviors and extreme obsession with pretty women because they casually took seats next to and across from one another, with Ace initiating the conversation about their daily lives. They completely brushed off the fact that Sanji had just kicked the shit out of this  _kid_ , with those steel legs of his that had done more damage to Zoro than what he had sustained in  _years_.

" _Ow_ , Sanji..."

The straw hat boy picked himself off the ground, rubbing his tender head with his palm. Then his expression brightened when Nami uncovered the lid to reveal a nicely roasted duck.

"Ooh, what is that? Is that meat?"

He skipped over to the counter and sat next to Sanji, who had taken a seat next to the red haired woman. It seemed Luffy had already forgotten that he was kicked across the sizable kitchen and hit his head against the refrigerator, or perhaps he hit his head so hard that he had forgotten those few seconds of abuse.

Zoro stared at the rowdy bunch with a stoic expression.

He'd met plenty of eccentric people in his life and had grown tolerant and somewhat oblivious to them, but these people brought the word 'eccentric' to a whole new level.

Weirdest fucking people he has ever encountered, but  _harmless_.

Zoro took a seat next to Ace, across from the blond who still had an undertone of pink burning both sides of his cheeks.

"How's the business for Baratie going lately?" Ace asked Sanji.

The blond answered, "It's been booming, man. I mean, even though I always tell you guys that I hate the rush hours and the crazy customers, I'm  _so_  glad I'm not failing that old geezer's business." He slurred his words a bit, alcohol clearly messing with his system.

Nami sighed as she shook her head, "You're such a workaholic, Sanji. You're so young, you have to live your life instead of working such long hours five days a week."

The man's idiotic face broke into a slobbering grin, with hearts popping out of his eyes again.

" _Ahh..._ Nami, my darling, how I love your caring side... and how you care for  _me,_ the  _undeserving_  me. I am so touched by your overflowing kindness." Sanji was trying to speak Shakespeare again, throwing his hands up to dramatize his emotions.

 

Luffy was grinning at the blond around a mouth stuffed with food, muttering, "I cware abrout shou, too."

By the unmannerly and obnoxious table etiquette of the young man, Nami smirked, her attention hampered from being completely fixated on Sanji's poetic love confessions. The blond's lips drew into a thin line, and with unamused eyes, he snapped, "Just eat your food, damn rubber man."

Luffy's grin didn't falter. It actually stretched even further, and Zoro wondered how  _big_ his smile could actually get.

Cutting in between the multiple ongoing conversations, Zoro spoke up, piqued by a certain comment made by Sanji.

"Hey, curly brows, why are you calling him rubber man?'"

The group turned to look at him, with surprised expressions, as if wondering how long Zoro had been sitting with them.

Ace perked up to answer, "It's a nickname we made for him because Luffy always bounces back up when he's thrown around, physically and mentally, just like rubber." He grinned good-naturally, "Only Sanji and Nami use it though, since they are the ones who abuse him."

Nami pouted, "I don't  _abuse,_ Ace. It's just that your brother can be too much sometimes." 

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed heartily, "This is so good, Sanji. I am going to your restaurant tomorrow with Ace again."

The blond groaned, but with that same tender expression he used every time he talked about his friends to Zoro, that feigned annoyance which hid his inner bloating happiness. To Zoro, he might as well been grinning from ear to ear— just like Luffy.

"You better not order everything on the menu again. My customers thought the place was a buffet afterward because you were scarfing down everything in sight."

The group laughed and Ace faintly replied, "I remember that."

And just like that, the conversations once again condensed into a bunch of insider jokes and "remember when's," secluding Zoro from their private puns. But occasionally, when he pretended to be interested in his food, he felt Sanji's eyes burning a hole through his skull, flickering but intense gaze of a drunken person, taking small and unnoticeable breaks from the collective conversation to rest his eyes on Zoro. He swallowed as his throat tightened,  _feeling_ the blond's eyes rested on his forehead, prickling his skin like a bunch of needles.

Zoro stared down at his plate, restraining the blooming blush from forming across his cheeks.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

Sanji grunted, "I was  _not_ staring at you, dumb marimo. I was just... drunk, a bit, because I  _clearly_  remember you avoiding our conversations and glaring down at your food. I'm surprised that the food didn't rot from your dirty looks."

"Shut up," the swordsman growled as he heard the blond's soft chuckle in the intangible darkness that surrounded them. "You're such a _w_ _omen pleaser_ ," he threw in every bite and criticism into that single phrase, thinking back on Sanji's pathetic performances around every pretty female in sight.

Sanji's chuckles bubbled into a harsh laughter, with shortage of breaths, leaving him to pant with puffs of his chest afterwards.

"I  _do_ please my women, with a magic I like to call... my  _penis_."

The moment was worth every fiber of his being, shrinking and cringing from the bad pun the blond had just made. The swordsman, however, remained aloof, his guise of perfect control and composure, not that Sanji was able to see his expression anyways. He could barely make out the outline of the cook's body.

"Annoying perv," he grunted.

"I'm just joking, marimo. I respect women  _way_ too much to just have sex with them and leave. I fucking detest the bastards who do that kind of shit," his voice sounded serious. "But I do admit, the whole idea of 'no strings attached' has a nice ring to it. After all, relationships only drag your emotions around like a dirty dish rag, it would be nice to just relieve stress without caring about the consequences sometimes..."

The cook trailed off, and for a few seconds there was a pin-drop silence, except for the occasional heavy exhales. Zoro could almost imagine the blond's expression of total tranquility, with his soft lips clamped around the edge of the cigarette, eyes closed.

And although he could clearly picture it in his mind, he wanted to see it with his own eyes.

"Oi, continue your story, but skip the boring introduction that I know already," Sanji grumbled. "Let's see, after dinner, the part where we all started playing video games..."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Dammit, Luffy, Kirby is  _my_ thing!" the blond screamed his head off, hue of scarlet soaked into his cheekbones.

The raven haired boy pouted, "Aw, come on, Sanji. I'll change the color of it. You can be blue Kirby and I can be red Kirby."

"Stop arguing, you idiots. Let's start this game already," demanded the red haired woman, who had already picked her character as Donkey Kong, an anthropomorphic gorilla that pounded its chest every five seconds.

In which the idiot responded, "Of course, Nami!" in a sickeningly loving tone.

In addition to those three, both Sanji and Luffy being Kirby and Nami being Donkey Kong, Ace was Fox McCloud. He said he liked it when the character engulfed itself in flames and charged upward, which Zoro did not fully understand until he saw it being done. Sanji had told Zoro to pay extra attention to the game, since the swordsman had never played Super Smash Bros. before, or any video games until now. Zoro watched how the four players used their controllers to lash out special attacks on one another, viciously pressing down on the buttons as though that increased the strength of their attacks. On the wide flat-screen, there was an array display of colors when Nami punched the floating orb called the smash ball, immobilizing her opponents with the sound waves of Donkey Kong's bongos.

"Goddammit Luffy, don't fucking swallow me!"

Zoro raised an eyebrow.

"We're both Kirbys, it's not going to help-" But as soon as the red Kirby spat out the blue Kirby, it swung its hammer out of thin air and sent Sanji's blue blob spiraling to the screen, hitting the camera before being KO'd.

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed triumphantly, "I beat you, Sanji."

Sanji grunted.

Shortly after, Nami knocked both Luffy and Ace out of the stadium with her brutal attacks, Luffy first then Ace.

Then with a wicked, devilish smirk, she asked Sanji for a favor, "I'm very thirsty, can you please make me some margaritas and mojitos, Sanji?" The wench even winked at the end to completely win the dumb blond over.

"Of course, my darling, anything for my beautiful lady!" he shouted before jumping quick on his feet.

The blond's game controller was handed to Zoro, who firmly gripped it by the handles and hovered his thumbs over the labeled buttons; and though he had observed the others handling it the whole fight, he had not fully grasped the concept behind it himself.

"Luffy, what do I do?" he whispered to the boy next to him.

Luffy leaned over, smelling of the food and spices he just ate. "You choose your character with this swirly thing and then click  _this_  button once you're done." He roughly guided the swordsman's thumb over the buttons.

"Which character has a sword?"

As he switched between character to character, his fingers became more adjusted to the controller in his hand, even more when the young boy had told him the functions behind each button. The blond plopped on the other side of the swordsman, placed the platter of drinks flat on the floor, and pointed to a specific character on the screen.

"That would be Ike, marimo, the blue haired dude with a red cape," he informed Zoro, "he has a sword."

Ace pressed start when the swordsman had settled on a blue eyed, pretty looking male character with a gladiator sword, Zoro only hoped that Ike was half as good as  _he_  is in real life.

The green haired man's nostrils were filled with the scent of the cook, a damn good cook, as Sanji leaned closer to teach him the basics of the game, about testing out his attacks and picking up dropped items and aiming for the super smash ball each time it appears. But Zoro could only concentrate on the texture of the blond's rugged and coarse hands as they hovered over his own; his heart sped up dissimilar from when Luffy was touching him. His knee, covered by the fabric of his jeans, burned nonetheless when Sanji's exposed hairy leg brushed up against it; his breath hitched at every movement, every shift by Sanji's, and he damn wondered why the fuck he simply could not concentrate on the game.

Within a few minutes, his limited five lives were thrown across the stadium, over and over, by that red haired wench, who was clearly enjoying every minute of her victory.

" _Damn_  marimo, you're a complete noob," Sanji whispered in his drunken breath, cheeks so rosy red that it would've burned Zoro's fingers if he dared touch them.

The swordsman did not understand the term but knew it had a negative connotation behind it, so a streak of annoyance lined high on his forehead.

"Don't talk to me about losing when you were also the first one knocked out."

"Ah, touché... and fuck you," the blond growled, but with a playful smirk tugging at the line of his lips.

Zoro, too, smirked at the comment, setting his controller to the side as others continued to play.

"Got anything strong?" he asked, referring to the alcoholic beverage, glancing at the margaritas and mojitos Sanji made for the red haired woman. "My throat is burning for something heavy, not this fruity shit you guys call alcohol."

Sanji jumped to his feet, unstable but still graceful, "I'll check my alcohol cabinet and get the cheapest shit I have."

"The cheaper the better, cook.  _They_  are the finest quality of alcohol you should be drinking," he recommended with an all-knowing glint of his eyes. "Take it from me, I know a thing or two about alcohol."

The cook was kneeling, both knees bending and ass touching the cold floor, in front of the bottom cabinet next to the oven; the back of his blond head facing where Zoro sat, who was at the borderline between the kitchen and the living room.

"Ah, my apologies," Sanji began, hint of mockery dripping heavily with each word. "I'm sure a little marimoknows better than a  _cook_."

Oh, man. The blond fucking knew how to provoke him good.

"Fuck you," Zoro spat, venomously, as he grabbed a bottle of Bacardi from the blond's wavering hands.

Sanji poured himself another glass of wine, three-quarters full this time, shaky on his knees when he plopped beside the green haired man. He was watching his three friends swinging around the game controllers in front of his television, and when he began to talk he sounded drowsy and heavily intoxicated when he hardly had any alcohol.

"Hey, you know something, we used to go to high school together, me and Nami," he said, slurring his words, his eyes half-lidded. "Actually, we all used to at one point. Ace, Nami, Luffy and Usopp, in age order. We used to skip out on classes, go on little adventures, and get into shitty fights with the school authorities."

He paused to hesitantly glance over at Zoro, swirling the liquid in his hand, "Are you listening?"

The swordsman didn't know why the blond was telling him all this, but he didn't really mind listening to it.

"Yeah," Zoro answered, as he took a gulp straight out of the bottle containing seventy-five percent of pure alcohol.

Sanji nodded, reassured by the simple word.

"I used to have a huge thing for Nami, you know, bigger than now, like a  _real thing_. I think it's 'cause she's so easy to fall for, so fucking beautiful, straight out of the films, has a body like a Greek goddess, intoxicating to even stare at. I used to admire her from afar, like a loser, until I realized Luffy was friends with her."

Right on the cue, Luffy shouted, "I got it!" in the background, throwing his lanky arms into the empty air.

"Since I knew I wasn't going to college, I thought Nami was, like, my last chance at love," he paused again, stared at Zoro with that piercing eye of his.

"Look, marimo, I don't even know why I'm telling you all this."

He pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose with his first two digits as he squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't even stare at you for too long, my vision is shaky."

It irked Zoro to hear about the history the blond had with that witch, who clearly kept him around for attention as he saw it.

Zoro snorted. "I don't know why you're telling me this either, but it's probably 'cause you're drunk."

"True," he agreed.

The blond proceeded in regaling him with the perks of his high school life, and it was nice hearing about Sanji's early days, although they had not been too long ago. Compared to his own teenage years, which had been filled with discipline and order like being in the military, it relaxed him to hear a normal upbringing of another.

Sanji sure was hell drunk to the tip though, because this hard-boiled cook had not been this loose lipped until he took those couple of sips of alcohol.

"Hey, mosshead, I have a question," the cook pulled himself closer to Zoro, directly gazed into his eyes. "Who was the first girl you slept with?" he asked as he replaced the wine cup in his hand with a lit cigarette.

The swordsman grunted, frowning, "I haven't slept with anyone."

The blond relaxed visibly, smiling, "Alright, who was the first girl you kissed?" he asked again, a much innocent question this time.

"I haven't kissed any girl, cook, why are you asking me this?"

Sanji's eyes bulged slightly from shock, still grinning like a fool— a  _drunken_  fool.

"Wait, wait, let me rephrase that question. Have you kissed anybody? Boy, girl, any living thing that might have come in contact with your divine lips?" This dickhead was sarcastic even in his intoxicated state of mind.

The swordsman rolled his eyes, frustrated and embarrassed, probably because the bastard was making such a big fucking deal about it.

"No," he answered.

The blond chuckled, with a deriving expression that Zoro wanted to smack off his face. Sanji took a profound wisp of smoke into his lungs before commenting, "You're surprisingly innocent."

Zoro rolled his eyes.

He didn't feel awful about the fact that he'd never smacked his lips against some girl, or anyone for that matter.

From an early age, all he had been interested in was becoming the best swordsman, surpassing a girl named Kuina, and training until his bones creaked like a bitch all day. He never had any time for trifle activities as love, or someone to submit all of his sexual urges and emotions to, hardly touched his own dick even after puberty had hit. He always believed that those things could wait until after his goal was achieved, because he could not allow anything to hinder him from the dream he and Kuina both shared.

"Sanji, I'm bored!" Luffy abandoned his controller to slouch over the blond's back, "Let's do something fun. Come on, Sanji. I'm bored."

Nami took a seat next to Sanji. "What are you guys talking about?" she asked with an inquisitive expression.

The dumb ass blond seemed awfully pleased that the woman had sat so close to him, leaning towards him with her large breasts spilling out of her shirt.

"My love, I was just telling marimo here about high school, back when I had a huge crush on you," he told her, candid and shameless. "I thought you were the most beautiful flower in school." The pervert's eyes were focused on her boobs and not her eyes.

 _What a cunt,_ Zoro thought.

"That's sweet, Sanji," she replied with a yawn, stretching out her thin arms above her head.

"It's nice playing video games with you guys again," Nami continued, her bare legs extended in front of her. "Since college classes and my part time job takes up every hour of the day, it's so rare to just sit back and relax."

"Oh, how's your modeling job lately, mademoiselle?"

"It's dreadful, but who can refuse  _all_  that money," she grinned.

Sanji jumped on his feet and clasped his hands together, "I love it when you're passionate about money!"

"Say, Zoro, do you have a job?" the boy with a straw hat asked him while sprawled out on the floor, laying on his chest and elbows, his chin resting on his small palms.

"I-" the swordsman began without actually knowing what to say.

Right then, the drunken blond bastard (though he actually helped Zoro) turned on the radio and a jazzy tune filled up the room, consuming whatever Zoro might have wanted to say; and Luffy, forgetting his own question, jumped to his feet and danced around with Sanji. The two idiots, one intoxicated out of his mind, were shaking their bums, and the rest joined except for Zoro, who watched the group circle around each other, laughing and talking over the lively music humming into their brains.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"I actually remember that," the blond recalled, followed by a nervous laugh as though embarrassed by the memory.

"Yeah, you looked stupid," Zoro cracked a smile, or rather, a derisive smirk that couldn't be seen.

Sanji huffed in annoyance, growled, " _Asshole_ , you would've probably acted all shitfaced if  _you_  were drunk."

"Too bad you'll never see me drunk, my tolerance is pretty high," he jested. Something about Sanji made him want to play around.

The cook paused, his light breath caught in his throat, "Pretty high, huh? Is that why you were blushing toward the end of the night?" He was teasing him, and Zoro could imagine a smirk on his rose colored lips, revealing a hint of his pearly white teeth, which was an anomaly as this cook had a cigarette in his mouth every time he saw him.

Zoro blinked a few times in surprise. He assumed that Sanji had forgotten everything that happened last night. "I don't know what you're talking about," he answered with a flat tone of voice.

"I'm having trouble remembering the whole thing, but I remember your cheeks and ears getting red when we were sitting on the couch. Everybody else had gone out to get some fresh air and snacks, but I had to stay back because I was too drunk and you didn't want to go. What were we talking about?"

Zoro internally groaned. When he was retelling the story, he had planned to skim over this part of the night, but Sanji was probing into that specific scene that he wanted to avoid telling.

After downing an entire bottle of Bacardi, a couple of beers, and some of the cook's fruity drinks, the swordsman admits that he had loosened up a bit, especially around this suave and flirty blond with his rosy cheeks and Baritone, smokey sound of his voice. Sanji had a gentle aura, which had a way of tapping into one's emotions, and Zoro had an easier time telling him about himself.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"I didn't ask you this before but what were you doing that night, and why did you decide to help me?"

The conversation began with Zoro's question, because as much as Sanji proved himself to be trustworthy, it was still strange to think that someone was kind enough to walk around that shady, red light district that he was in, and help Zoro when he was shot and unconscious on the ground. Perhaps if he had been shot in the middle of a crowd, people would've cared enough to check up on him, but in the narrow and dingy street, it would be more reasonable to walk faster at the sight of an unconscious body. Especially in a dangerous neighborhood.

What was Sanji even doing there in the first place?

From the looks of it, the blond is more than well-off. He owns a restaurant at the age of nineteen. He wears expensive suits by the looks of it, each piece probably costing him over a thousand dollars, and his house is beautiful and spacious. A wealthy man like him had no place in a neighborhood that he was in, when he happened to stumble across Zoro's unconscious body.

"Are you suspicious of me?" the blond asked him, taunting but serious.

The swordsman shook his head. Despite the cook's heightened athletic capabilities, which pars quite even with his own, he knew a kind man when he saw one and Sanji had no reason to be after his head. After all, they didn't know anything about one another.

"No," Zoro answered.

A silence lingered, as the cook fiddled with the cigarette hanging low on his lips. Despite how drunk he was, he was keeping his composure and formulating his thoughts like a sober person would.

"Zoro, if I were to ask you the same exact question, about what you were doing there that night and how you ended up in that situation, would you answer me truthfully?" He was looking at Zoro straight in the eye, unwavering, and piercing into his soul. "Whether you like my answer or not, I just happened to be the person to save you and when I saw how wounded you were, I took you to the hospital. They tried to search for your identity, but you didn't have any sort of ID, debit or credit cards. Just a bundle of cash. Since they didn't know who you were, they asked me if I can be your guardian and I agreed. That's all there is to it."

The swordsman felt that he was hiding something, but seeing how desperate the cook was trying to hide it, he lost the will to ask again. Also, if he pressed Sanji to answer, he was sure that he would try to do the same, and Zoro wasn't ready to be truthful yet.

He was still healing from his injuries… but could that be all?

Perhaps a part of him felt something he had never felt in his entire life, except for the times he spent with Kuina. A sense of normalcy, as though he was just a regular man with a group of friends to hang out with, and he wasn't so desensitized to brutalities like murder, blackmail, and torture. A feeling of warmth emanating from Sanji and his group of friends… If he were to be truthful, then and there, it would all end and the blond would inevitably kick him out of his house, whether he's healed or not from his injuries.

It was silly, but he wanted to hold onto this feeling for just a bit longer.

"I see," Zoro said, nothing more and nothing less.

Sanji seemed to be a bit frustrated and antsy, as he was clenching the butt of his cigarette and shaking his legs.

"Look Zoro, I'm not keeping you hostage. You are free to leave my house at will, and you are welcome to stay here as long as you like. As payment, you can do chores around here, and I'd already given the hospital the cash you had with you that night as payment so you don't owe me anything." His voice was quiet, as though these words were forced and void of any meaning.

The swordsman grunted, "I want to stay as long as I can, but realistically I can only stay until my injuries are healed. I have to go back to my life."

As vague as his explanation was, Sanji didn't say anything. His solemn expression gave his face a mature appearance; and as red as he was, he appeared as though he had come out of a poem, working through tragedies or some shit with those deep blue eyes of his, aquiline nose, and a shapely bow sitting at the top of his rose colored lips.

Zoo could not help but find him beautiful.

"You told me that you've never slept with or kissed anybody, but have you fallen in love then?" the blond asked him, a sudden change of topic. The swordsman wondered what went through his mind, past his aloof expressions, for him to switch from one subject to another so fluidly.

The only person he had ever truly loved came to his mind. "I don't know if I loved her romantically, but there was a girl named Kuina. When I was twelve years old, she was my only friend and she's the reason why I'm still alive."

That caught the cook's interest, and Zoro could tell as Sanji literally turned his whole body to face him with a fat smirk on his face.

"Oh ho? You saving up your virginity for her or something? You're surprisingly cute, past your rough and edgy scene boy phase you're going through," Sanji cooed, causing Zoro to instinctively roll his eyes.

"No, you annoying bastard," he said with a low growl, annoyance flaring up so quickly despite the fact that he's known for his emotionless and stoic expressions in the organization. Something about Sanji made him more mushy and jam packed with emotions. "I wasn't romantically involved with her, we just learned about swordsmanship side by side and she always beat me no matter how much I trained."

The memories flooded in about a little girl with a short, dark blue hair and a condescending look on her face whenever she wielded a sword. She knew how skilled she was, as she was a child prodigy in swordsmanship, the best the organization has ever seen at the time. Now, of course, Zoro had exceeded her abilities after training like hell, though he can't verify as she died as quickly as they met.

Sanji cackled, "For some reason I can't imagine you losing to a little girl."

"I wasn't always this strong."

The blond took out another cigarette out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. He smoked one after the other as though he couldn't give a shit if his lungs gave out on him, though it was the same with Zoro who drank an inhumane amount of alcohol without a care about his liver. They were both men who lived for the moment, smoked and drank simply because they liked enjoying themselves.

After taking a long draw out of his cigarette, inhaling as though it was his last breath on earth, he glanced at the green haired man. "So what? What happened? She fueled your desire to be the best swordsman because she was better than you? Now, let's see… since you said you guys weren't romantically involved and you used 'was' to describe her as a friend, I'm guessing something happened that separated the two of you. What caused that separation?"

If Zoro had been more of an expressive person, his mouth would have literally dropped from the sheer unexpected response from the cook. He was able to connect the dots so easily, despite the fact that Zoro had spoken so little.

He nodded, "Uh… yeah, you are right. She died from falling down the stairs."

Whenever he spoke of how she died, he chuckled because it was so ordinary. There was no murder and not a single drop of blood drawn, which is how everybody expected their own deaths to be at the organization. Everybody prepared from the minute they set their foot into the organization to die in a gory and torturous manner, yet Kuina died from a slip of her footing. Though it had been a death, it was the most peaceful way one could've left from that organization.

Though he had expected more of a response, Sanji remained silent, as though death was a familiar topic to him and it did not need a fabricated response of 'I'm sorry's.

For a few minutes, they comfortably lingered in the silence that stood between them.

In the quiet space, the swordsman thought about Kuina and the organization that held him bound like shackles around his ankles. He wanted freedom, of course, and he was willing to go to extreme lengths to earn it by climbing to the highest rank. The only problem was, even if he managed to free himself, he would have to figure out how to claim an identify. There was no proof that he existed anywhere in this world. No ID, debit or credit cards, passport, or even a birth certificate. He was an empty existence, as intangible as air or people's souls, existing but without any evidence.

Breaking his thoughts and the silence surrounding them, the blond peeked in with another question. "Does that mean you're interested in women, marimo?"

_Is this what normal men talk about?_

Even though he's never had a normal conversation outside of assassination strategies since Kuina's death, other than simple exchanges of "what are you eating" with Kaku and some other members who had similar ranks as him, he had an inkling that this wasn't it.

_Why does this idiot keep asking me about love and shit?_

With a tinge of annoyance, the swordsman said, "I don't care about shit like that," though he meant it more so toward the topic surrounding Sanji's relentless questions.

"Oh?" the blond raised the tone of his voice, very noticeably and dramatically, as if it was some top secret information that he had managed to lay his fingers on. His eyebrow, a curly freak of nature, raised like a question mark.

"Hm, does that mean you might be interested in me?" he asked, each word dripping with seduction and charisma as sweet as a raw honeycomb.

From his whispering raspy voice, the swordsman felt something he had never felt before, a trickling sensation that trailed its way down his spine, wrapping its grasp around his piqued arousal. It was not only  _what_ the cook had said but  _how_ he said it that sent the green haired man in a frenzy, ruffled with embarrassment.

"Wha—" he stuttered, trying to find words that would hide a rising panic that was beginning to flush his face with a color similar to Sanji's lips.

Was he drunk? he wondered.

Is that why he suddenly found himself wanting to touch the blond, kiss him the way he never wanted to with anybody in the past.

 _Woah_...

Zoro caught himself in the midst of his thoughts, pulling himself back to the reality sitting so comfortably next to him, watching the swordsman's every move. If they had a second longer, Zoro was sure that he would've not restrained himself from jumping on the cook and pulling his clothes off.

"We're back!"

Luffy shouted as loud as if he were speaking to a microphone when the rest of the group entered their home, causing the two men caught in their game of allure to jump up with widened eyes.


	5. Honesty

"So…" the blond drawled his words out, making the situation much worse than it could have been.

The way Zoro had described the night was as succinct and to the point as possible, leaving out the details of them almost jumping each others' bones and the sexual innuendos hidden behind the cook's words. The aura of their masculine pheromones lingering in the air, even after the rest of the group had walked in and hung around them.

It was most certainly a weird event that transpired between them. Zoro didn't even know if Sanji was into men, but he seemed to be into Zoro when he was drunk. 

Most unexpectedly, with a nervous clear of his throat the blond asked, "What did you think about that then?"

Though the swordsman couldn't make out the cook's face in the surrounding darkness, he could imagine the scarlet streak across his pale and ivory canvas. Perhaps that's how he felt himself or he wanted to see the cook like that: humiliated and embarrassed, spread out in front of him, screaming Zoro's name like a curse word with matted blond hair covered in sweat.

 _What the hell is wrong with me?_ the swordsman gave himself a mental slap.

It wasn't like he had ever been interested in anybody before and he hardly masturbated, as he considered it a form of training to discipline himself. When the guys in his organization often pulled out their cell phones to watch porn, Zoro hardly gave it a glance because it didn't interest him like it did with other men. He never had the urge to sneak a peek at a woman's naked body, nor men's, and he had never been aroused at the thought of fucking anybody.

_Not until I met Sanji._

The blond was an enigma.

A fiery, ass-kicking cook who decided that using his feet was enough for a fight—which, Zoro confirms, is undeniably true—and he was an annoying womanizer melting at the slightest touch or even a look from a woman. Then there was another side to him that was a bit unfamiliar to Zoro, the side that allowed the dangerous swordsman into his home to treat his wounds, an  _assassin_  lying on his back in the middle of a red light district alleyway.

A curious work of fate, or perhaps it wasn't since he still didn't know why Sanji was there that night.

Now the same blond who stood in front of him was asking him what he thought about last night, and if Zoro was honest he would tell him that he wanted to kiss Sanji last night.

There was an undeniable string tugging him toward Sanji. He found himself more irritated than he had ever felt in his entire lifetime, but simultaneously happy, embarrassed, and just simply feeling as though he was living for the first time in his life. But he was in no way this honest with his thoughts and feelings.

"I had fun," he responded in a stoic tone of voice, giving nothing away.

It was a force of habit to hide and tuck his emotions away. In the organization, revealing any sort of emotions was a sign of weakness, and if any of those motherfuckers smelled anything close to a weakness they would tear you apart without a second to lose, leaving you purposefully alive to rot away slowly and painfully until death finally comes to alleviate you.

"Well," the cook sounded flustered, almost huffing that word with the exhale of the smoke from his cigarette, which Zoro couldn't see but smelt once it landed on his face.

"I'm talking more specifically about…" he trailed off, leaving Zoro more confused than ever.  _Spit it out!_  he wanted to say. "My question… do you remember?" He sounded so nervous and his voice was croaking, which was probably from abusing his throat with cigarettes or he couldn't force those honest words to come out.

 _Does that mean you might be interested in me?_ Sanji's voice clamored in his head, a voice of seduction and temptation, alongside his own heartbeat pounding louder than usual.

"Yeah," Zoro responded with hesitance, confused by where the blond was going by this. "So what?"

Finally, the blond's patience obviously thinned as he annoyedly snapped, "What the fuck do you think, you damn retard? I'm asking whether you're interested in me!"

A foul mouthed, impatient, hot-tempered cook who spat fire and cooked with the fiery passion in his veins.

 _Hold up. I find him attractive?_ Zoro groaned inwardly, coming across this realization rather slowly. 

 _I just met him_! It wasn't true, he convinced himself. He had just stepped outside of a vicious and every-man-for-himself type of environment so his expectations were low and his heart was probably being stirred at any sign of kindness thrown at him.

It was too early to say.

Something was off, because as kind as Sanji had shown himself to be, Zoro didn't reveal anything about himself, so the blond shouldn't have any sort of attraction or attachment toward him.

Right? Was he just being suspicious?

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that, I just thought we connected pretty well." He sighed heavily, "I've never met anybody I could spar so evenly with, and our conversations… we just flow, it feels easy and open. I've never met someone like you. It just feels different with you, I can't put my finger on it. That's probably why I made a rash move like that last night. I _did_ want to kiss you, now that I remember what happened."

Then Zoro understood.

Sanji was just like him, desolate in the world they were thrusted into and without anybody to truly rely on, as no one actually understood. It was a surprise, given that the blond had so many friends, really good people, surrounding him yet he still felt the way Zoro did.

Perhaps Zoro's heart wasn't stirred by the fact that Sanji was the first person to show him kindness but because it was  _Sanji_ , who was kind and ass-kicking and happened to come across his dying body that night.

Was it a work of fate? Something that Zoro had always believed in but never truly, much like religious individuals who went to church to prove their faith that they actually lacked.

Did Sanji somehow want to make him believe in something?

"I don't know," Zoro told him truthfully, because as little as they've known one another he did trust Sanji. "We've only known each other for a day, not counting the time when I was asleep, and I'm actually new at this whole thing."

"I know," the blond told him. "You told me yesterday, remember?"

Zoro nodded, forgetting that the blond couldn't see him, "There are things that I haven't told you and I don't think I should, not because I don't trust you but there are other reasons."

 _It's to protect you_ , he wanted to say.

"Eventually I have to leave."

Even if they were fucking soulmates reincarnated into this world, universe after universe, to meet again, Zoro knew he couldn't stay. He felt indebted to this man who saved his life when he didn't have to and had all the freedom in the world to leave him behind to die. So, Zoro felt the need to leave and return to the organization before they notice his disappearance.

 _I can't risk getting him killed_.

"But…" the blond began to speak, trying to refute the swordsman's argument that didn't make any logical sense.

"It kind of feels like fate, doesn't it, marimo?" he chuckled. "Sure, I may not know you, like, at all, but I have this feeling we're pretty fucking similar. I feel like we were meant to meet for some reason and I'm sure we're going to find out why pretty soon." 

Zoro's chest began to throb as he remembered his conversations with Kuina.

" _Zoro, don't you think even us, the abandoned children who've been raised by violence, deserve something more?" the little girl buried in his memories spoke, lying next to him after a spar, and Zoro who was nine years old at the time remembers seeing the reflection of the full moon on the pool of her dark blue hair._

_He didn't understand much at the time because he hadn't seen much of the world yet. She was older than him by three years, and she's seen the world outside of the training academy and the orphanage._

" _What do you mean 'more,' Kuina? What more is there?" he asked, wondering whether there could be any other path than the one he was placed on, the road to become an assassin._

_She didn't respond to his question, or perhaps she did but he wasn't sure. "I feel bad for you and the others here, waiting to kill and to be killed, unable to find your fate and the souls that are connected to yours."_

" _This is my fate. Our fate, Kuina. There's nothing we can do about it but accept that fact."_

" _I hope that someday you'll see things differently, Zoro."_

Her voice reverberated in his head like a temple bell, reminding him that he is exactly where he's supposed to be with Sanji.

"I feel it too," he told the blond in a whisper, scared that things will change and he will someday plunge into an unknown path away from everything he's ever knows. But he felt that the pain in his heart could only be alleviated if he said these words, and that Kuina would be proud of him.

They remained in the silence for the rest of their time in the balcony until Sanji spoke in a low, guttural voice which was probably a sign that he wore his throat out from smoking too many cigarettes in a row.

"Let's go back inside and sleep."

As they shifted their bodies toward the door, the light flickered on and though Zoro had a difficult time adjusting his eyes to the sudden illumination, he saw a glint of tears in the corner of the blond's visible eye.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Ne, Sanji, wake up and make me some food!" With a sharp pain jolting horizontally across his head, Zoro woke up to the sound of Luffy's boisterous and whiny voice.

For a few seconds he wondered where he was, as everything appeared unfamiliar. Typically this would've caused him to be alert and expect the worst, but the sight of Luffy shaking the blond man awake from his slumber relaxed him.

It was strange to wake up in a house as spacious and aesthetically pleasing as Sanji's, since Zoro was used to waking up on a bunk bed that did not even have a mattress. Zoro had the choice to get a new mattress, as he was ranked rather high in the organization, but because his back had gotten used to the wooden panel he chose to be without a mattress.

So waking up on the floor was nothing new for him.

With a groan, the blond woke up to Luffy's stirs and mumbled some words that resembled "shit head."

Zoro couldn't help but notice his blond hair that usually slicked naturally over his one eye was puffed up like a bird's nest, revealing his other eye. He couldn't hold back his smirk when he noticed that both of his eyebrows were curly and pointing in the same direction.

"What are you laughing about, Zoro?" Ace asked him, approaching them without a shirt on and his shorts barely hanging onto his waist.

Despite the fact that he was used to men without any clothes on, he couldn't help but to notice Ace's perfect figure, which was not too lean or bulky, leaving him finely muscular. His abs were obviously noticeable but they weren't obnoxiously bulging out. They were just simple lines leading down to his happy trail, which was also noticeable due to his shorts hanging so low on his waist…

Zoro's attention snapped up to meet the raven haired man's eyes,

"Just the blond's eyebrows," he simply remarked, unafraid of Sanji's wrath.

The blond growled and hurriedly brushed his hair with his fingers to cover his eye, well knowing what the green haired man was laughing about.

"Bastard, you were making fun of my eyebrows."

And just like that, the two of them were back to normal as though last night's events had never transpired.

"It's not my fault that you have some freak of nature, genetic defect," he snorted, adding so much oil to the already ignited, scorching fire.

It was obvious that Sanji was  _not_  a morning person because typically he would've resorted to a sassy remark before swinging his ironlike leg to throw Zoro across the living room space, causing his already throbbing head to ache even more.

"Agh—" he spat out as his body pathetically gave out from the sudden impact, and partly because he was still injured.

"Sanji!" Nami bursted into the room after hearing them making a racket, and she immediately noticed the swordsman's slumped body with blood oozing out of his bullet wound. "He's bleeding!" she exclaimed, with a panicked voice.

As though the morning spell had been broken, Sanji's eyes flickered back to his regular self and he quickly rushed to Zoro's side.

"Shit, I forgot."

All four of them hovered over Zoro's slumped body and he felt the unbearable pity from their looks prickling his skin. He placed his palm over his wound, which definitely was reopened, and pressed it to stop the blood loss. This was something that was common knowledge to him, though this was his first time being shot.

"I'm fine, it'll close back up soon," he told them with a sigh. This pity wasn't needed.

Though it pained him, he tried to stand up to prove his point and get them off his back.

"Zoro, sit down." Most surprisingly, it was Luffy who demanded this in a serious tone of voice that Zoro would've never expected to hear from a man who seemed to have the heart of a child, and even more surprisingly he found himself unable to disobey those demands.

He sat back down.

"Call Chopper, Sanji," Luffy continued to speak in the tone of voice that sent everybody to do as told.

The blond stood up to find his phone on the kitchen table, and the entire time he was punching in numbers he appeared deadpan, without a twitch in the corner of his lips or any sort of indication that he was thinking or feeling anything. He would've been as calculative as Kaku if he had been part of the organization, though he doubted Sanji would be as cold and ruthless as Kaku.

Zoro wondered what was going on in his head.

"We should do something about the blood," Nami told the raven haired brothers, reaching for the first aid kit at the top of the bookshelf, which was actually right next to where Zoro had landed.

In the background, Sanji was speaking to this 'Chopper' person on the phone. "Hey, Chopper, sorry to wake you up, but we need your help…"

"I don't think I can do this," Nami told them with a grimace on her face, seeing the bullet wound that was oozing out blood when Ace unwrapped the bandages.

Zoro could understand why.

The wound was puckered like an asshole except it wasn't such a pretty sight being that it was all sorts of colors: purple all around, crimson red with blood, and the flaps of the skin being orangish yellow. If he wasn't so used to seeing injuries, he would've grimaced himself.

"I'll wrap the bandage around him, but it'll just hold until Chopper comes," Ace stepped in with the bandages in hand and helped Zoro take his shirt off.

Sanji's voice was ringing in his head as the swordsman closed his eyes. "See you soon, Chopper."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Sanji, are you out of your mind! Why would you kick someone with a serious bullet wound, not to mention that it happened only a few days ago!" The little kid who seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen with disheveled brown hair and round eyes came in to scream his head off at the blond haired man.

 _Is he a doctor?_ Zoro questioned in his head, as he expected someone with a white trench coat and much older to arrive.

"I knew I should've kept him at the hospital but you insisted that you bring him here!" the little kid continued to ramble, making his way over to the swordsman's slumped body.

_He's the one who treated me? Is he even old enough to be in college?_

"Hi," the kid named Chopper greeted him with a little smile that would have melted anybody with a cold heart, with an exception of Kaku of course. That man was on a whole other level.

"I'm going to anesthetize you so I can stitch you back up. Before that though I have to make sure you don't get infected, and it's going to hurt a lot. I hope you can handle pain. It'll be over quickly though, so don't worry," he reassured Zoro, and it really would've been effective if the swordsman had never been in such a situation before. Too bad he's had way more serious injuries than this with doctors that couldn't give a shit about their patients.

It was a first, however, to have a kid doctor treat him with such kindness and care, as though Zoro was just a fragile little boy.

"Sorry Chopper, I was still half asleep when I did it," Sanji told Chopper while scratching his bushy head. "And I have this terrible hangover." 

Zoro rolled his eyes, "he just got upset because I made fun of his eyebrows."

The cook growled, sending shivers down the green haired man's spine. "Now I'm thinking it was well deserved for your shitty ass to be kicked all the way across the room."

"Sanji! Don't disturb the patient while he's getting treated!" Chopper scolded him again.

To Zoro's surprise, Sanji backed down rather easily as he mumbled another apology under his breath and walked away.

 _Huh, I wonder why he's only like that with me_ , Zoro wondered before wincing at the slight pain spreading from his wound, as Chopper was patting him with a cotton pad wet with a solution to clean his wounds.

"It'll only last for a few seconds," the kid whispered.

Being near Chopper gave him a feeling of reassurance and warmth enveloping him, similar to drinking a cup of hot chocolate. The kid was so goddamn cute with his wide eyes, disheveled brown hair, round nose, and rosy cheeks. He was usually the type of person to hate kids without a reason, not anymore than the fact that they're usually snot-nosed and self-absorbed, ignorant to consider anybody else but themselves like he used to when he was younger.

Chopper seemed different.

"Aren't you a little bit too young to be a full-fledged doctor?"

The kid appeared surprised by the innocent question, or the fact that Zoro was attempting to have a conversation with him in the first place.

"I am young but I am more than capable than most doctors out there. I have been taught by the nation's best of the best doctors since I was a child, and I already finished med school last year. I am still working with one of my teachers, who is also my guardian, but she trusts me enough for me to work on my own," Chopper confidently answered.

The swordsman nodded, as he understood that the kid in front of him was a prodigy, like himself and Kuina except it was with medical practices instead of swordsmanship.

"How did you get shot?" Chopper asked, and it was probably a way to distract Zoro from what he was doing to his nasty wound.

"I'm not too sure. It happened too quickly for me to know who it was."

The kid raised the tone of his voice, "So, you don't even know who did it?"

"No, but it was definitely a calculated plan," Zoro mentioned, trusting the kid enough to talk about his theories of that night. "They knew exactly who I was and what I was capable of, or else there wouldn't have been two men, one capable of martial arts and the other capable of sniping…"

As he was saying these words out loud, it occurred to him that there weren't many average people in the world who were able to take him down easily, and so the two men (or women) who attacked him weren't normal at all! One shot him from such a long distance away, which Zoro knew because of his intuitive sense that had been trained for many years at the organization; this meant that the sniper was especially skilled, perhaps an assassin like himself. The other one was able to disguise his presence from Zoro's keen senses and attacked him with such raw power that equaled his own.

_Why didn't I think of this before?_

All of a sudden he felt vulnerable.

If they were as skilled as Zoro believed them to be, they knew that he was alive. The sniper had missed his vital organs on purpose and they were still after him.

_Where did they go? Why did they leave me there? Why attack me just to keep me alive? What did Sanji see?_

And the most important question:  _Who are they?_

Zoro had trailed off, as all these thoughts suddenly dawned upon him like a canon, and his stomach began to hurt more than the bullet wound that Chopper was stitching back up.

"What's wrong?" the kid asked with urgency in his voice, thinking that Zoro was experiencing some sort of a physical pain.

"I'm fine," he answered in a stoic tone of voice.

There were a few possibilities that he didn't want to stomach, but he  _had_ to as he was trained to consider all possibilities, even the ones that he didn't want to be true.

First possibility, and the easiest to swallow, was that there was another organization or possibly the government targeting individuals from his organization, meaning that he was only shot because he had a high ranking; and most likely, if this was true, then Kaku would've been targeted as well. The only problem was that he was left alive. He highly doubted that this was an accident. If the sniper had, by some fluke, missed his vital organs accidentally, then his partner would've definitely checked his pulse to see if he was still alive since he was right next to Zoro anyways.

If this theory was true then he would've definitely finished the swordsman off.

 _There's no way a professional killer would make a huge mistake like that_.

No, him being alive wasn't a mistake.

The second possibility, one he didn't want to consider but it was definitely more than probable, was that his own organization wanted to kill him. If that was true though, then they wouldn't have left him alive either. Perhaps they were trying to test him, but Zoro had no clue why they would and he'd never heard about anything like this in the past. It would explain how he was taken down so easily. Only the organization knew of his abilities and it was possible that they purposely sent a sniper and someone who could disguise their presence.

He didn't even want to consider the third possibility, but it was still probable.

The disguised presence who had managed to land a solid hit, one that was hard as steel, resembled Sanji's legs.

 _But why would that shitty cook want to attack me?_ he wondered.

Zoro recalled a memory from the strip club, the one Kaku and he attended right before he was shot. In the bathroom where he was taking a piss, though it was a fleeting moment that he deemed as insignificant in his mind, he remembered seeing the blond cook shouting at the top of his lungs and wearing an odd double-breasted suit that seemed too formal for a shitty place they were in.

Now, was it a coincidence that Sanji happened to be in the same club and the same alleyway Zoro was in?

Before that night, however, he had never seen the cook. That would mean the possibility was even lower than the other two, as Sanji wasn't familiar with his abilities, he had no reason to kill Zoro or attempt to kill him just to leave him alive; and most importantly, why the hell would he take Zoro in to help him recuperate.

If Sanji was a kidnapper who had housed him, using the excuse of helping him recover, then he would've been watching Zoro like a hawk; instead, he left many opportunities for Zoro to simply leave.

 _This doesn't make sense_.

Of course it didn't, he countered his own thoughts. This was just a probability so he wouldn't be caught off guard.

"All finished," Chopper cut off his stream of thoughts, and when Zoro looked down to see his wounds it was hidden behind a professionally wrapped bandage.

"As a reward, here you go."

Zoro stared at the pink lollipop Chopper was handing him with a raised eyebrow, thinking how ludicrous this situation was but simultaneously reaching out to take it from him.

Who could reject a cute kid like this? he thought, despite the fact that sucking on a lollipop would destroy the terrifying, demonic image his underlings had of him.

_Cotton candy flavor…_

"Oi, are you good?" the blond called out from the kitchen, and Zoro suddenly noticed the delicious aroma straying over to where he and Chopper sat.

Sanji was wearing a frilly, laced, pink apron; one that he imagined only girls would like.

Zoro inwardly cringed. 

 _If I was taken down by an idiot cook like him then I deserve to die_.

"Yeah, but I bet you aren't happy to hear it," he shot at Sanji, testing the waters.

The blond was quick to fire back, without any hint of hesitance, "Hell no." He almost sang those words.

Zoro smirked.

He couldn't help but to relax once more with the good-natured jokes swinging back and forth between them. He also couldn't help but notice the blond's backside. The lean curve of his spine that led to his strong muscular butt, with legs that were longer than anybody's' he'd ever seen and probably strong enough to snap someone else in half.

It was no wonder that he was so allured by the cook.

Zoro always liked those who were strong, and the blond was attractive and had a personality that matched his. What a perfect fit!

 _Focus, Zoro!_ he told himself.

The problem seemed more dire than expected, as the likelihood of his assailants knowing that he was still alive was high and they were most likely coming back to finish the job. It was dangerous for him to leave Sanji's home as they could easily spot him, but it was also dangerous to stay as that could put everybody in danger. Even Sanji, despite him being a competent fighter.

He couldn't do this alone. He had to find someone whom he could trust.

The only problem was… he didn't have anybody.

He had many partners in the past, like Kaku, but none of them were worthy of his trust. All of them had been thoroughly desensitized since childhood and only cared about themselves, which was true for him as well; and perhaps as children they were friendly enough to converse freely and hang out, but now those same children learned to guard themselves against a world they saw as hostile, a threat that could crush them at any time.

It was true that the story between every assassin differed, but all of them shared one thing in common, and it was that their humanity has been profoundly and utterly battered, enough to leave them as soulless monsters.

"Food is ready, you shitheads and my lovely Nami-san!" the cook announced, which had the domino effect of Luffy tackling Ace in excitement and the two brothers falling on top of Chopper, who yelped in response.

Zoro sighed, putting a hold to his dilemma.

He decided that this was a problem for his later self.

For now, he followed his stomach that seemed _way_ too eager to pull him toward Sanji's food.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

As the day dwindled down, they left one by one, leaving Sanji and Zoro alone to feel the weight of last night's events that have transpired between them. It would've been awkward for any normal people, but to say that they were the furthest thing from  _normal_  was still an understatement.

"Oi, cook, don't you have to go to work soon, or are you just sitting home to take care of me?" he asked, half mockingly and half seriously, as Sanji's fingers were carefully replacing the bandages with cleaner ones as instructed by Chopper.

When the cool tips of his fingers grazed against his tanned, muscular skin, Zoro shuddered from the touch. It was an unfamiliar feeling to be touched so gently by someone else.

"I'm the owner of that place, marimo. I can go in whenever I like and I trust all of my chefs who were trained by my old man to do their jobs while I'm not there," he responded, short and to the point, not taking the bait of Zoro teasing him.

"As simple as that, huh."

"Yeah. But you're right though, I think I should go soon to check up on the chefs. The longer I'm gone, the shittier the food gets," he snorted, condescendingly if that was even possible. "I swear I'm the only one keeping that upholds the standard of that place." 

Zoro continued with his stream of questions, "So Chopper is a doctor, you're a chef, and Nami said that she's a part-time model and meteorologist—"

"The best one in the city," Sanji cuts him off with a smirk, obviously proud of Nami's achievements.

Zoro ignored him and continued, "Then what does Luffy and Ace do? Do they even work?"

For some reason Zoro couldn't picture them in any typical work settings, imagining Luffy's tendency to be impulsive with his actions and childlike with his words; these traits were favorable to get along with others but not so much at work, or so he would imagine since he never worked a real job outside of his organization. Ace, on the other hand, would have been perfectly normal if he didn't have narcolepsy, the tendency to randomly fall asleep. It was a rare and bizarre case, but Ace told him that it never occurred in moments that were serious, when his adrenaline is all fired up and his head is pumped with blood.

"I mean... they do but it's nothing too unusual…" Sanji told him, with hesitance hinged at the end of his sentence. "They are both good at fighting so they teach others."

Zoro could see that the blond wasn't a good liar, as he stuttered at the beginning of his sentence with guilt written all over his face.

"What are you hiding?" he asked, suspicion spiked in his veins like a shot of whiskey.

He didn't think there was anything to hide behind his innocent question, but he was clearly wrong.

Sanji appeared flustered and Zoro could see every sweat drop finding a trail down his temples, veins in his hands as they were wrapping the bandages, and the tint of redness flaring up in his cheekbones. That's how close they were. He could even smell him. The scent of smoke, spices, and coffee. He smelled so damn good that the swordsman had an urge to lick it off of him.

_Fuck._

Clearly the libido he has been repressing for all these years were finally roaring into motion, overwhelming him in waves of inexpressible urges and raw desires.

The cook gave a little cough, "You ask a lot of questions for someone who refuses to answer them himself."

In response, the swordsman raised his eyebrow, implying with a simple look that Sanji was just beating around the bush and turning the spotlight on Zoro because he didn't want to answer the question.

The thing he liked about the cook the most was that he looked at Zoro without any sign of wavering.

Even if he was under pressure and feeling uncomfortable under the scrutinizing eyes of Zoro's, the cook's gaze was in the midst of the flame and a plunge into the ocean, as those dark blue orbs were challenging him to the core of his being. There weren't many people out there who could come out unscathed from such a declaration of war against Zoro, but he fully believed that Sanji was not only capable of coming out alive but with a cigarette in his bloodied hand, an apathetic look on his face as if to say that hell in itself wasn't hot enough for him.

With a harsh drag from his cigarette, Sanji finally came clean with a straightforward response.

"Even if I told you the truth, you wouldn't fucking believe me," he spat out.

Zoro scoffed, "Try me, cook."

"Fine," he exclaimed, pausing for a few seconds before taking a huge breath. Slowly, he started to speak in his alto and velvety tone of voice. "They are part of an underground and fully  _illegal_  ring for martial artists, and they get rewarded from winning fights and doing favors for some elites, though they only do it for people they like. They are actually pretty famous among the underground mobs, important people who hold the world together, like the government."

The swordsman blinked a few times, gathering enough sense to realize that perhaps he wasn't the only abnormal person here.

Sanji rolled his eyes, "See, I told you. You don't believe me."

It wasn't that Zoro didn't believe Sanji's story. He was just bewildered and found himself unable, or didn't think he had the capabilities, to believe that they were just as weird or unusual as he was, different from the rest of the world. A bunch of misfits.

As though a binding spell had been broken, Zoro began to laugh.

Sanji scoffed, obviously annoyed by the swordsman's response. "You don't have to find it that funny. You were literally lying in your own blood the other night, I don't think what I'm telling you is that far fetched from your own life."

The swordsman grinned, thinking:  _If only this cook knew_.

"I believe you," he told the blond.

Sanji's eyes lit up, an obvious relief passing through him as his body visibly relaxed. "You should, shitty mosshead, because I'm telling you nothing but the one and the only truth. But one more thing though," he smirked, a look Zoro himself was quite familiar with as it resembled the feeling right before diving into a fight, one filled with excitement and full of surprises.

"I'm also part of it."

A chill traveled its way down Zoro's spine and abdomen, sending a delicious thrill into places he'd never paid attention to, and his heart, usually rhythmic in its beat, began to stir like crazy.

He should've known.

Very few people could fight him the way Sanji did and he must have known instinctively that Sanji was as fucked up as he is when he felt something between them that he had never felt with anybody else before.

It also explained the house, a huge place that required a lot of money, and the fact that he was able to take leisure vacations so freely like he had retired already. The fact that he was an owner of a restaurant vaguely, faintly, explained how he was doing so well, but this  _really_ explained it.

The blond had already finished wrapping the fresh and clean bandages around Zoro and he was leaning against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one bent upward to support his elbow.

As expected, he took out a cigarette and placed it between his teeth.

"The night that I found you, I was actually at the underground ring. That area is known to be untouched by the authorities since the police officers are bought off by some of the big names. I was making my way back to the hotel from a fight I had that night with some loser named Buggy when I saw you in the alleyway, lying there in a pool of red."

If this story was true then Sanji would no longer be a suspect, which was a huge fucking relief and made perfect sense, because why would someone attack him just to bring him back, heal his wounds and keep him around? 

Unless he was as twisted as Ted Bundy, keeping him around to toy with the idea of killing him someday and to subtly manipulate him on a daily basis. 

 _I'll take my chances_ , Zoro entertained his own absurd conspiracies. 

"Now that I shared my secret, you have to tell me yours," Sanji urged with a slight grin, turning the tables on him and playing mind games, like Ted Bundy had done, though the blond was a thousand fucking times more attractive and entertaining.

An alluring piece of shit who didn't even know how charming he was; and now, knowing that he is also a badass who actually can and does kick ass, many asses in fact, Zoro felt himself more and more drawn to this man named Sanji.

A mysterious blond who, out of anybody else in the world made up of millions of people, happened to be in that alleyway as if by fate and took him in.

He could not lie to himself any longer that he didn't feel it, the magnetic pull from the blond, a terrifying feeling that could change everything.

The possibility to even destroy him, though that was a tinge more dramatic than he wanted it to be.

A face of apathy, in contrast to the inner turmoil that Zoro felt, as the blond softly blew out rings of smoke.

"Well?" Sanji asked again

Zoro decided that it was time, throwing away all of his past suspicions and doubts, to trust this man in front of him and tell him the truth.

As the swordsman was a man of little hesitance once he makes up his mind and heart, he looked into the dark blue orb of Sanji's eye and told him the truth.

"I'm an assassin," he answered; and though, he had expected there to be fear from the other man, he again was surprised by Sanji's responses, which was to say that there weren't any at all.

The cook raised his curly brow, which resembled the fibonacci sequence and probably held all the mysteries of this universe.

"So—" he drawled out. "You killed people?"

Zoro nodded, grimacing from the question, knowing that the connotations behind death was more severe to others than to the swordsman or anybody else in the organization.

To him, it was more like if you've lived a shitty life, enough that there are people after your neck, then you probably deserve to die. He thought of himself as the blade dropping on those who were going to be executed anyways, as he neither sadistically enjoyed the act of killing or seeing the life leave the person's eyes, though he enjoyed fighting and the adrenaline rush behind a mission. He knew an average person would not, could not, see it the way he did.

Sanji, though, was not an average person.

With a shrug, he answered, "Cool."

It was as though Zoro had just told him he eats cereal for breakfast or that his favorite color is green, something  _that_  mundane and not worthy of a proper response.

"Look, I don't know your story but I can't judge. I did a lot of shitty things in the past, but to say those things determine who I am isn't true. I think that's also true for you too, right?"

"Yeah."

Zoro had never wanted, or expected, anybody to understand his life or what he went through. But the fact that the blond so easily and effortlessly understood him gave him a feeling he had never felt in his life.

Perhaps he had felt it with Kuina, but that had been so long ago.

"Cook, the reason why I didn't want to tell you this is because I don't know who my attackers were that night and I was afraid that they would attack you too if you know my secret. I don't have anybody whom I could trust, so I'd been using your place to hide," he told him truthfully, sheepishly.

He might as well have said:  _I was just using you_   _and I don't got a fucking plan._

Sanji, to his surprise even though it really shouldn't be a surprise anymore, suddenly grinned and leaned forward. With the blond suddenly so close to his face, he could smell the cigarette on his breath overwhelming his senses.

"Then let's find those motherfuckers before they find us."

* * *

 **AN** : I just suddenly thought to myself that I should get the plot rolling >:)


	6. Getting too close

"Are you sure this will work, cook?" he asked, tentatively, as he was buttoning up his dark green dress shirt that had a mossy pattern, and putting on a black suit jacket that, to his surprise, fit him rather perfectly. He was sure that the blond had a smaller build than him.

Sanji, on the other hand, had his usual attire.

A blue dress shirt which brought out his eyes, a black tie, and that double-breasted suit with six gold buttons on the front; his classic look, one that reminded him of the first night he saw him.

"Well, you basically don't know anything about your situation. You don't know who your assassinators were nor do you know who the boss of your organization is. If your suspicions are correct and you think your own organization is after your ass, then the best thing to do is take the offensive position by gathering up information."

The swordsman had already told the blond about his suspicions, which included Sanji on the list.

When the cook had heard he was on the list of suspects, he found it hilarious and had fits of giggles, like a little girl who had gotten away with something mischievous. "If I was after your ass, I would've finished your ass. Why would I keep you around?"

The same thing Zoro thought to himself.

Sanji suggested that it would make more sense for Zoro's perpetrators to be his own organization.

"Your enemies are usually much closer than you think, especially because they already know everything about you, which includes your weaknesses. As you said, other organizations don't know much about you, if at all, so how would they be able to take you down so easily? Even if your own organization aren't your perpetrators, I think finding your boss will give us some information we need to further understand what the fuck is going on with your life."

Zoro found this whole situation amusing.

He had once heard that you can never truly know someone without being in a violent situation together. He had never expected Sanji to be so calculative, easily filling up what Zoro lacked himself; the ying to his yang.

Even though everything the blond said had made sense, he still couldn't understand why his own organization would be after him.

In the past people were eliminated for attempting to leave the organization or betray it in any sort of way, but Zoro had never shown interest to anybody before (though he fully intended to leave someday), and it wasn't like they were mind readers. 

A memory from ten years ago jogged into his mind, a few weeks prior to Kuina's death and a few months after their talk about fate and freedom.

_Two children. Their shoulders heaving as they were panting spasmodically, heart pounding in their eardrums, and droplets of sweat slicked over their skin. They were running away through the woods, which surrounded the building (also known as the academy), trying to reach the world outside of the one Zoro had always known._

_It seemed that no matter how far they ran, the scene around them remained the same, except the day was starting to become darker and the shadows began to lap up everything around them._

" _Zoro, come on. We have to go," the little girl urgently demanded. "They definitely know that we're gone by now, we have to leave this place."_

_The boy at the time was much weaker than he is now, and he didn't have enough stamina to keep up with the girl in front of him, which was so goddamn infuriating and frustrating. He didn't want to be the one to hold the two of them back from their goals._

_Huffing and puffing, with his lungs feeling like a thousand needles were penetrating the surface, he managed to continue his previous pace. In his mind, the only thing rushing in and out was the fear that someone was right behind them; a hand that will grab the back of his shirt and Kuina's hair._

_Fear was his motivator, and what a great one at that._

_They had miscalculated, however, believing that they had a fair chance against assassins who were used to chasing their preys. They believed the enemies would be behind them when, in actuality, they were in front of them waiting peacefully for their arrival._

_The feeling of tasteless and utter defeat. It was worse than having Kuina beat him for the twenty thousandth time in a row._

_The man in front of them, though they didn't know at the time, was Rob Lucci. A man with a top hat, a fur coat on his shoulder, and a venomous expression that was enough to kill. He stood at the top of the organization and handled the most important, top secret missions for the boss, as he was the only one who knew his identity. Though they didn't know who he was at the time, they knew from his overwhelmingly intense and powerful aura that they did not stand a chance._

" _I was told that two pigeons flew too far from their nests. I came to retrieve the two of you, unless you want to try to get past me?"_

_The way he spoke was almost monotonous, robotic, but it seemed noticeable from the glint in his eyes that there was a sadist who enjoyed seeing the total despair and fear on their faces._

_Unlike Zoro, who couldn't accept defeat so easily and would rather bite off his own tongue before accepting his loss, Kuina gracefully answered for him._

" _Take us back."_

At the time, the organization let them off the hook by adding more chores to their lists, but if they had been any older they would've been penalized with nothing less than death. If they had decided to rebel against Rob Lucci at his request, he would have killed them without any hesitation.

Zoro, perhaps foolishly, had forgotten and believed that the organization had done the same.

_But why now?_

If the rebellion ten years ago was the reason that the organization was trying to kill him, then he couldn't understand what the sudden trigger was, as he had never shown any sign of rebellion against them since then. If anything, his loyalty to the organization and ruthless methods of assassination had placed him high in rank.

"I think I need to find a man named Rob Lucci. He is the only man who knows the identity of our boss in the organization," the swordsman informed Sanji, who was fixing his blue tie for what seemed like the millionth time in the mirror and combing his blond hair to look the same as it had been ten minutes ago.

Zoro rolled his eyes.

Who the idiot blond was trying to impress, he didn't even want to know.

"Oi, we are just going to scout around the place, you don't need to take five hours fixing what you can't fix," he snapped, intending to get under Sanji's skin, for reasons he couldn't understand himself.

The blond, though, knew him better than he knew himself, "Don't get jealous that I am trying to look good for others, you idiot."

A red undertone resembling what people might call a blush began to spread across the swordsman's cheeks, which was ludicrous because Roronoa Zoro  _never_ blushed.

"You're the idiot" was all he could muster as an insult.

The blond smirked, a clear win for him to guess the swordsman's emotions correctly and get him flustered.

"Lucci, huh? I feel like I've heard of him before," Sanji responded, changing the flow of the conversation, eyes glazed with thoughts and lips puckered in contemplation.

The blond, standing so confidently in front of him, with a pose so relaxed despite the fact that the two of them were about to jump into a field of warfare with shit more dangerous than guns and blades, Zoro felt a tug of awe and respect for the man.

With a man like that in front of him, how could he not believe in fate?

He forcefully shook himself from thoughts that tugged at his emotions.

Sanji who made him feel more human than ever before, he could not help but believe that it was only a weakness. Being a human was a hindrance to an assassin, and that was the philosophy he could not shake off as it had been ingrained into the foundation of his being.

"Ah! I know someone who can help us," the blond blurted out.

Zoro raised an eyebrow.

"He's this guy that Luffy is close with; his specialty is gathering information. He's helped us a lot in the past. I think if Lucci is in any way famous among the underground organizations, then he would know a way to contact him."

As Sanji was explaining, he picked up the keys from the kitchen counter and two jackets from the coat hanger, throwing one over to the swordsman. The blond wore the black trench coat, bringing out his innate elegant, suave appearance. Zoro, on the other hand, appearing as rich as those he would assassinate, dressed in an Armani suit and a brown leather jacket, bringing out his usual badass look.

If Sanji represented the angel then Zoro represented the devil. The light and the darkness. Life and death. Except, the blond was more than a mere saint, as he smoked and cursed and lived like a free moherfucker.

"Why would he help me?" the swordsman asked, hesitant to trust another person.

The blond threw a grin behind his shoulder as he was in the midst of opening the door.

"He has no choice. He owes me, I always cook for that fucker."

The green haired man grinned back; he couldn't help it, to feel immortal at times like this when he should be feeling most vulnerable and afraid. It was Sanji who made him feel like he could actually come out alive from challenging Rob Lucci, the hidden boss, and the fuckers who tried to kill him that night.

The dices began to roll, and Zoro has never felt so elated in his entire life.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The roar of the cook's motorcycle came to a halt in front of an empty warehouse, which was absent of any light or life forms except for a few cars parked next to the large square complex; though, that wasn't much of a giveaway that there was a bustling underground activity happening inside.

Zoro could recognize the location of the warehouse, as he was around this exact neighborhood when he was shot that night, and he assumed that the strip club was only a few streets away.

"Why does it look so dead in there?"

The blond's voice was hushed and secretive, as though the two of them were under a blanket trying not to get caught by someone else. "The place is literally underground and disguised. This is one of the many entrances to enter the ring, and I was given a specific access code to this place. You wonder why this place has managed to slip past the eyes of the government, it's because their security is so tight."

They approached the single door in the middle of the building.

A tattered wooden door, barely hanging onto the oxidized latch, and the frames were in the process of rotting away. Zoro had to say that he was convinced. Even if he was told that there was something going on in there, he could only believe that the place was an abandoned complex tearing itself apart by the process of nature.

Sanji opened the door, which revealed, not to Zoro's surprise, an empty complex that had a few boxes tucked away in the corner and spider webs hanging from the ceiling, an unbelievable amount that threateningly aroused the swordsman's suspicions.

He couldn't help but wonder:  _Is the place really here?_

The cook closed the door behind them, and Zoro almost expected men dressed in cloaks from behind those boxes to jump up and attack him.

 _At least I have my swords with me_ , he thought.

Instead, Sanji began to thump the ground with the heel of his shoe from one spot to another, and the sound reverated throughout the building. Zoro was sure that he could hear the rats scattering away in fear from the sudden noises and the rodents dropping to the ground from the vibrations. The swordsman wasn't a fan of either of those things.

"Where is it?" Sanji mumbled. "It's around here somewhere."

Zoro's senses were heightened, expecting an ambush at any time, when one of the blond's stomps sounded different from others. A hollow reverberation, echoing into the earth and indicative that there was something deeper beyond its layer.

"Here you go."

Sanji got down on his knees to peel the wooden floors, revealing a metal surface with a large handle on the left side and a square panel of numbers from 1-9 on the right side, resembling very much a safe. Sanji quickly punched in the numbers 4769, which he had already told Zoro prior to coming in, and an automatic clicking sound followed the action.

"Now we just have to open this up and there will be a staircase leading down to the ring," he said this all too casually, almost nonchalantly.

Zoro thought his life was strange until this point, but perhaps in this whirlwind of such a ludicrous day, he could call it somewhat normal.

"Uh, okay."

When the metal door swung open a staircase was revealed as exactly as Sanji had foretold, though Zoro could only see the first few stairs as the rest was swallowed by the pitch blackness.

"Do you have a light?" Zoro asked the cook.

Everything about this situation screamed danger, and if Zoro was any bit sane he would have been repelled by this scenario that oddly resembled a horror film, which was actually introduced to him at an early age as a method to desensitize and deviate him from human nature. He could honestly imagine a ghostly figure popping out from the shadows, but even if it did he could confidently say that he would not even flinch.

A mere ghost wouldn't scare him, but to be frank he was a man who didn't even fear death.

Sanji nodded before taking out his phone and pressing the flashlight button.

"If you're scared mossy, you can hold onto my lighter also," he cooed, chuckling at the end of his sentence.

"Fuck off, don't try to hold onto me when  _you_ get scared," Zoro growled in response.

Sanji scoffed, "That's what  _you_  wish. Don't think I didn't notice you trying to feel me up when we were on the motorcycle." 

Zoro simply rolled his eyes, without giving the blond the satisfaction of a reply. But it was true. His hands had impulsively roamed to feel up the blond when he sat behind him on the motorcycle, his groin placed between the heart shape of Sanji's tight ass. His hands could not resist feeling the hard muscles that lied beneath his blue cotton shirt. 

Ever since last night, when they had gotten intoxicated and almost kissed one another, and later on admitted that those drunken actions were in fact sober thoughts, the sexual tension between them had noticeably gotten stronger. From the small flickers of hungry, lingering gazes, as quick and faint as a light bulb flickering on and off to the desperate touches, with hands pulling at the fabric and seeking warmth at the lining of the pants. 

He remembered that he had to be careful, as his crotch was directly in contact with Sanji's ass and they were practically dry humping each other with the vibrations of the motorcycle. 

His groin was slowly waking up from its terribly long slumber, and it twitched and shuddered as it repeatedly rubbed against Sanji's backside. Zoro felt his pants get tighter as he concentrated on that feeling and knew that Sanji would eventually feel it too if he didn't focus on something else. As the wind harshly caressed the three earrings on his left ear, he concentrated on the melody created from them and thought back on a similar sound of a bell, hanging on the bicep of a tree about a mile from their orphanage. It was Kuina and his meeting place.

The memory became an anchor to the floating ship. 

It took a lot of willpower and concentration, but his groin eventually became limp and flaccid against his left leg and he was able to just enjoy the scent hanging onto the threads of Sanji's hair. 

 _This is harder than anything I've had to deal with_ , he groaned to himself. He was a man of self control, and prided himself as one, but he never wanted to lose himself more than when he was with Sanji. 

"Let's go." The blond's voice switched quickly from a playful to a serious tone, bringing the swordsman's attention to the present and shifting his mood.  

To say the trip heading down was unpleasant is simply an understatement, as the stairs creaked and wobbled with every step and the fetid smell of perhaps a sewage nearby hit his nostrils instantaneously. The smell of urine and feces, corpses rotting, and wet mold on the stairs beneath their shoes and the walls around them.

_Why would anybody go through these great lengths to go to an underground ring? What's so great about it?_

Once they reached the bottom of the staircase, Zoro noticed that their footsteps echoed and traveled horizontally down the path in front of them.

 _A tunnel,_ Zoro assumed.

"At the end of the tunnel, the underground ring is there. Tonight, the place will be packed because there's a fight between Luffy and Enel. Since Luffy is one of the most popular contestants, all attention will be on him," the blond gritted his teeth as he said those words. "We can take that to our advantage and look for Lucci or whatever."

Confused by Sanji's sudden annoyance, Zoro unintentionally rubbed salt into his wounds by asking, "So is Luffy more popular than you or something?"

The blond stayed silent.

Zoro began to snort with laughter. "How is that scrawny kid more popular than you? I bet he gets more girls than you too."

"Shut up, grasshead!"

The swordsman simply chuckled, finding that the exchanges between them had been amiable and a bit flirty, leaving traces of goosebumps on his skin and a slight buzz in his head.

_It's like I'm drunk when I'm around this idiot._

As they approached the end of the tunnel, which Zoro could tell as the echoes began to follow them instead of leading them, the swordsman saw light peeking around the edges of the door ahead of them.

A sudden realization dawned upon him. "Oi cook, what if someone recognizes me in there?"

Sanji smoothly responded, "Too late for that now." He emanated an 'I don't give a fuck' attitude as he knocked on the door with his knuckles. The swordsman shrugged, silently agreeing with him. Even if he had a change of heart, he couldn't back down now, not when they came this far.

"Code," the man on the other side of the door said this one word.

Sanji responded, "4769."

"Okay, come in," the man replied and not a second later, the door swung open and the once peeking light poured out, blaring harshly for the two men who had adjusted to the darkness.

"Wait, who's this guy?" the man jerked his thumb toward the swordsman, which he could see as his blinking eyes quickly adjusted to the light.

 _Shit_ , he thought.

_Shit, shit, shit._ _At least I still have my swords with me._

"I'm Sanji Vinsmoke, a fighter here. This is my guest, Zoro Roronoa. I'm allowed to bring guests as long as I check in with my team leader, Law Trafalgar. Could we go now?" The way the blond asked wasn't in any way  _asking_  but had the intonation of a threat, a demand, or just a statement as though he was simply telling the man what he planned on doing.

At the mention of Sanji's name, the man suddenly seemed to be wide-eyed, struck with perhaps admiration but also fear.

He managed to choke out, "Go ahead."

Zoro smirked.  _Maybe this idiot does have a reputation around here._

Then again, all sophistication and threatening demeanor thrown to the side, the idiot blond was grinning to himself, gloating in the fact that his reputation was enough to make a man almost piss himself.

Zoro's new perception of him was short-lived.

As the two men walked down the hallway, they found themselves entering an enormous and dome-like space with at least a few thousand bodies roaming around and surrounding the stadium, a circular sandpit that was the only still picture in the midst of this chaos of motion. Despite how many people were in the space, it was relatively quiet and the only noises heard was from the bar and the footsteps of people walking around; and a lot of these people had masks on, ones you would see at a masquerade ball except it covered their entire face instead of just the eyes.

A small chill ran down his spine as he realized the reason why they had masks on.

These were all public figures: politicians, filthy rich entrepreneurs, famous celebrities.

Those who couldn't risk getting caught in an illegal ring but couldn't stay away from this gory, secretive, elite experience.

 _Dirty scums,_  he thought to himself, as a few bypassed him with elated expressions, some seemingly recognizing Sanji. 

It disgusted him that they got aroused with excitement watching people kill one another. Although he himself had be thoroughly dehumanized, he could say with every fiber of his being that he was still more human than them.

"Marimo, stop making that face, what's wrong with you?" the blond hissed at him, whispering these words so they wouldn't attract attention. 

"It's just disgusting that these people get off watching this shit," he spat, hardly adjusting his voice down to a whisper.

A few curious glances were aimed their way as they made their way past the crowds of people.

His hatred toward elites had been fostered to grow to this extent over time, as they were the reason why assassins were needed in the first place. For these disgusting fuckers who wanted to kill others for money gains and reputation, or simply because they had the power to do so, children like himself were taken from orphanages and from their homes to become assassins.

If they wanted to kill someone, at least they should do it themselves.

_Those fucking cowards. How can they go home to their families, put on a smile and sleep so peacefully at night when the blood is on their dirty hands?_

Zoro did not pity those who had died, as they probably deserved it and another assassin would've done the deed if not him, but he loathed cowards who hid behind their wealth and hired others to do the dirty work for them.

"Woah, woah, woah, what's going on? I thought you were cool with this?"

The swordsman snapped, "I am, with  _you_  and the rest of the fighters. Just not with these elites fucking jacking off to people being killed."

Sanji seemed a bit taken back, shocked even, and he took a heavy gulp of air before he slowly began to speak.

"Look, Zoro, we are  _fighters_ here. This isn't like the Roman Colosseum, where people are doomed to die, which isn't to say that there have never been deaths here before, but most of the fighters understand that a victory isn't to kill the opponent. Maybe you're right and these people are here to see blood and death, but I can't help but think that you're a hypocrite. Aren't you an assassin who kills people? Why are you criticizing people who get riled up from seeing people die when you are out there killing people every day?"

The longer he spoke, the angrier he seemed to get.

It was true. Zoro had no remorse for the people he killed, so even if he didn't get sadistic thrills at the sight of death, could he really say that he was any different? Did he really have the right to hate them?

The swordsman spoke quietly this time, looking away from the daggers that were Sanji's eyes. "But I don't have a choice. They do."

Then the blond blew up on him, livid, with his entire face turning reddish purple. "You do have a choice! Everybody does! Don't place yourself on a fucking pedestal just because you gave an excuse to your own shitty behaviors, own up to it like a real fucking man!"

By this point, with Sanji screaming his head off, they were gaining a lot more unnecessary attention from others.

They sped up their pace to pass the crowds of people, who all turned their heads to stare at them, and found a door with the words "Staff Only" labeled on top. For a second before they went in, Zoro wondered if he was allowed to go in with him. 

There was a small, narrow hallway with white lights illuminating above and white walls surrounding them, and another door to the right after a few steps down the corridor. 

There was tension in the air when they closed the door behind them, leaving them in a private space with lockers and wooden benches in the middle. 

Zoro thought about what Sanji said to him, about how he was a hypocrite and a coward, putting himself on a pedestal while hating those who placed him in this situation. An orphan forced to become an assassin for some shitty organization he didn't give two shits about, for a boss who he didn't even know the face of. 

Sanji's words stung, mostly because the blond was the only person he had ever opened up to and  _no one_  has ever said anything like that to Zoro before, and no one even dared to as they understood it would be at the cost of their lives. But Sanji didn't give a fuck because the prissy blond was just as powerful as Zoro was and he  _dared_ , with every fiber of his I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude and livid look in his eyes, for Zoro to fight him.

For a second, the swordsman thought about attacking the blond and putting him in his goddamn place and put them out of their misery of being unable to touch each other, but he knew that what he truly wanted was for the blond to understand.

"You _don't_ understand, Sanji. It wasn't a choice for me to be in this organization. I didn't choose to kill all those people… I'm actually trying to get out."

There it was, his precious secret spilling out of him like his life wasn't at stake, simply because he didn't want the prissy, pretty blond to hate him.

He could tell that the blond was thinking, contemplating whether Zoro was simply making an excuse to win him over or if he was being genuine.

"Then, what's the problem? Get out if you want."

The swordsman grunted, "Asshole, if I could get out anytime I want then I would've been out by now. It's not that easy!"

Sanji raised his visible, curly-cue eyebrow.

"You have to get jumped out or some shit, like in gangs?

Zoro shook his head from side to side, "No. Worse, because we won't even have that choice. At any sign of rebellion or even the thought of getting out, we are killed on spot. We won't even have the chance to explain ourselves, or fight to get out."

" _Shit_ ," the blond said in a whisper, and it was clear that his anger had dissipated into thin air.

He sat down on the bench that was stretched out in the middle of the room and took out a cigarette, with his legs spread wide open and hands resting inside of his pockets.

He looked like, in every shape or form, a gangster.

"How did you even get in there if it wasn't by choice? Were you kidnapped as a child? A family member sold you to the black market? Or, let me guess, a friend of yours tricked you into joining?"

The swordsman chuckled, though nothing was funny about his past. It was just the movie references that amused him.

"I was kidnapped when I was a baby, or I assume, because I don't remember the times before I turned three, or maybe four. I was always surrounded by kids my age, not much older than I am, with a few nurses taking care of us… and that's about it."

"Shit," he repeated again, blowing out a smoke this time.

"Sorry man, I didn't know. I just assumed you had a choice, just like I do. I never imagined—"

"It's okay, you didn't know," Zoro said gently, and he meant it.

He was just relieved that Sanji understood, that he wasn't a murderer by choice. For some reason, Sanji's opinion of him mattered more than anything and he was pushed by an unbelievable force to do whatever to convince him of that fact, even if that meant putting his life at stake, though to him that wasn't even worth that much.

For a moment, engulfed in the silence, with Zoro's body hovering over where Sanji sat and gravitating toward the place between his spread legs, they stared at one another. 

There was a feeling in his chest, a small bump, reminding him of last night when Sanji's flushed face leaned closer and he could smell the smokey breath tickling the hairs of his nostrils.  

The way Sanji looked up at him, with his soft pink lips parted naturally and his blond hair shifting to the side of his head, revealing both of his eyes that engulfed Zoro like the ocean and the sky, taking his breath away.

It was so fucking cliche that they were just looking into each others' eyes, wordlessly, saying nothing more as there wasn't anything to say. It was like a moment straight out of a poem, though Zoro never really understood the point of poems.

"Zoro—" Sanji began to say before he was interrupted by a few knocks on the door. The two of them turned their attention to the sudden sound, a few hushed voices that was still loud enough for them to hear. 

An unfamiliar voice. "Luffy, don't interrupt them!"

Despite the warning, Luffy came bursting into the room with a wide smile on his face, marching in so shamelessly and without any sort of hesitation. Behind him was Ace and a few others Zoro couldn't recognize. His attention was drawn to dark skinned man, partly because he had a long swords strapped to his back, standing next to Luffy with a grim look on his face. He had heavy bags under his eyes as though he hadn't slept in days and a mean smirk on his face.  

"So, this is who you were talking about Luffy," he stated, looking straight at Zoro. A look of interest, but no challenge in his eyes.

"Yep, that's Sanji's boyfriend, Zoro!" Luffy announced, with an innocent, wide smile on his face. 

As a response to his younger brother's announcement, Ace began to laugh.

The blond's face became tinged with pink and he began to grunt things like, "He's not my boyfriend" and "We've only known each other for a few days" and "I'll kill you Luffy."

The rest of the group poured into the room behind them.

Other than Luffy, Ace, and the dark skinned man who introduced himself as Law (while Luffy introduced him as Trafalguy), there were three others who introduced themselves as Brook, Franky, and Usopp.

From the cook's stories, Zoro remembered those three. Brook is a musician who traveled around the world and once became a rockstar, but recently he settled down to compose sheet musics instead. Franky is an engineer, architect, and his main passion is being a shipwright, which isn't a popular demand but he manages to find some here and there.

Lastly, Usopp is the liar and has a long nose, which was all that was said by Sanji.

Usopp was wide-eyed when he approached the swordsman, like a child approaching a tiger for the first time. This didn't come as a surprise to the swordsman who was told that he had a terrifying demeanor. It was quite expected. 

The other guys seemed a bit weird, much like Luffy and Sanji, but they were amiable and funny.

"So, did we interrupt anything between you two?" The guy named Brook asked Zoro, and his eyebrows seemed to be dancing, indicative that something naughty happened between the two men.

The swordsman pushed the pervert away, "Nothing happened, Brook."

"That wasn't my question, yohohoho!" Brook laughed, causing others to laugh as well.

Sanji grumbled, "I know that Luffy's fight with Enel is tonight, but we're here for a more serious matter." He grabbed the frivolous attentions at bay and had their eyes focus on him. 

"There are two people looking for Zoro, whether to kill him or not is unbeknownst to us. We are suspecting that it's his organization that are after him, but he nor anybody in that organization except for a guy named Rob Lucci knows who the boss might be. We're trying to be a step ahead of them and find those motherfuckers."

"So, Law, we need you to help us out with gathering information about this Lucci guy and the organization he's in; and the rest of you guys, we might need your help when shit goes down, which it probably will knowing our shitty luck."

The dark skinned man nodded, "Sanji-ya, I have an inkling that I know who you're talking about. I've been hearing about him from both sides. He goes by a different name but I think he's also an undercover agent for CP9, the secretive government agency some of you guys may be familiar with."

There were heads nodding in response.

"The thing is, I don't know whose side he's actually on, the government or the underground, but I suppose that doesn't really matter. All I know is that he's incredibly sneaky, intelligent, and powerful." 

The swordsman furrowed his brows.

Perhaps the leader of his organization was from the government as well, if Lucci was involved in both.

He gritted his teeth.

What a fucked up world they were living in if that was true. For the line between law and criminal to be so thin. 

"My old man might be able to help," Ace suggested.

Sanji turned to explain to Zoro, "His old man is Whitebeard, one of the most powerful leaders in the underground world, but he didn't get there by selling drugs or weapons, rather, he has a tight hold on the government as he came from a lineage of the most respected and richest families. He didn't need to do the petty shit to get there because it was basically his birthright."

"Man, Sanji, don't make him sound like he didn't do shit to get there. He gathered the scattered underground mobs under his wings and he's literally the reason why our country is scraping by, since the government relies on him to do underground trading with other nations," Ace explained, clearly full of respect and admiration for this Whitebeard man.

"Sorry, Ace, so how do you think he can help?" the blond gently changed the tide of the conversation.

"I could ask the old man if he knows any organizations like Zoro's, with a guy named Rob Lucci in it, since he has ties in both the underworld and the government."

Luffy interrupted the flow of the conversation. "Sorry guys! I have to go now!"

The small raven haired boy was shaking with excitement, grinning ear to ear, and Zoro noticed for the first time that his fists were wrapped in white bandages. 

"Oh shit! It's about time!" Ace exclaimed. "We can talk about this later, Sanji, let's go watch my brother beating the shit out Enel!" He was also simmering in pure, robust excitement. 

The swordsman threw a glance at the cook, who looked at him with the same question written on his face: do you want to go?

Zoro nodded, a wild grin spreading across his features.

He loved a good fight. Being in one and seeing one. And he wanted to see how good Luffy  was.

If he was more of a popular demand than the blond, then he must be really fucking spectacular at fighting unless it was his innocent and natural boyhood charms that pleased the crowd, though Zoro heavily doubted that was the cause.

The group walked down the hallway and left Luffy off at the elevator, who had to make his way to the locker room close to the center stage.  

"Good luck, Luffy, not that you'll need it," Ace told his younger brother, a warm smile to encourage him.

"Kick Enel's ass, Luffy!" Franky shouted.

"I'll make you some food after your victory, Luffy," Sanji added.

As the elevator door closed, the last thing they saw was the peace sign he held out in front of him, reassuring them that he'd be fine. 

The group made their way out of the hallways and back into the crowd of people, which had multiplied by a sheer amount from the last Zoro saw them. 

They moved slowly, inching their way little by little toward their seating areas, which was at the front of the stadium. 

Sanji and Zoro found themselves in a tight position, pressed up against one another just for a moment, as the breathing crowd expanded and tightened, carrying them ever so slowly to their destination. 

Zoro felt the hard muscles beneath the blond's suit, which was sadly not any thinner, against his own body; and whether it was intentional or not, the blond's crotch was rubbing deliciously against his own thighs. As there was a small blush blooming across his cheeks, Zoro realized that Sanji was very much aware of what was happening, and the impish child inside of him squealed in delight and became mischievous.

The swordsman experimentally gripped Sanji's hips, the center of all of his powerful attacks, and tentatively sprawled his fingers, inching ever so closely to his tight ass. Though the touch was so delicate, Sanji reacted immediately, which the swordsman was able to feel hardening against his thighs. A bit roughly this time, he pulled the already close blond even closer, grinding his crotch against himself and releasing a slight moan from the other man, who leaned forward and breathed hotly against his tanned neck.

The sight of the helplessly aroused blond sent the blood flowing to his own groin, and the only thing rushing through his mind was mindlessly fucking the man in front of him.

The image of his pale, ivory skin under his fingertips. His muscular torso, well-defined pectorals with the same colored nipples as his pink lips, and a lean six-pack all bare for Zoro to see and taste. His sex drive was firing up, imagining the blond running a hand down his stomach and erratically jerking himself off just for Zoro, running his tongue on the outline of his lips, teasing the swordsman for what's to come.

In the midst of his imagination, a blood-curdling reminder appeared in his peripheral vision.

A chill ran all the way down his spine and his entire body began to feel numb. A dull thudding of his heartbeat in his ear drums, as all the noise of his surrounding became drowned out in his mind.

He slowly turned his head to confirm his fears and pushed the blond away from him, whose reaction he couldn't see as he was solely focused on the man with a familiar long nose, unlike the one he saw today on Sanji's friend named Usopp.

_Kaku._

He had his usual assassination outfit, with a black hat to give off an appearance of a menacing expression and a jet black, half zip sweater to hide any blood stains. He was part of the crowd, and there was quite a distance between him and Zoro, but it was without a doubt Kaku, making his way to the exit with an expression that didn't give away any indication of seeing Zoro.

Zoro instinctively crouched down, hiding among the people who were similar in height or taller than him.

His heartbeat was unbelievably loud and fast, and Zoro wondered why, for the first time since he tried running away with Kuina, he felt so afraid.

* * *

 **AN** : I swear I don't hate Usopp xD 


	7. The Fight and The After Party

"Ladies and gentlemen, this event in the night had been a torturous wait, but I'd like to introduce you the two fighters about to enter the arena. A prominently renowned fighter named Enel, who traveled all the way here from the United Kingdom, proficient in various forms of martial arts. He has earned the national title and calls himself 'The God.' On the other hand is our beloved Luffy, who isn't proficient in any type of martial arts but, as we've previously seen many times, we all know that he  _can_ fight."

When the showman who was dressed in a suit of what seemed like a thousand diamonds embedded into the jet black fabric paused for dramatic effect, the crowd roared to express their love for their dear Luffy.

A random guy in the crowd even shouted "we love you straw hat!" after the crowd had hushed enough for his voice to be heard.

The two men emerged from the opposite sides of the center stage stadium.

The man named Enel had a white bandanna wrapped around his head, covering the blond hair that was peeking out from beneath.

The most noticeable physical aspect about him, other than the fact that he was shirtless and had ear lobes that were stretched long enough to dangle with the slightest movement he made, was the fact that he looked like fucking Eminem. An American rapper whose music would blast in the halls of his childhood memories.

Luffy appeared the same as they had seen him last. A straw hat on his head, red shirt, bandages wrapped around his fists, and an intense look that could be best described as excitement or blood lust.

He happily waved to the crowd chanting his name. 

Enel seemed confident, in the way someone would appear after they had already won. The sort of confidence that was overwhelmed with conceit and condescension.

A completely different aura shrouded the raven haired man, who held out his fists, not in a provoking manner but in anticipation for the upcoming fight with Enel.

Noticing the glee dancing in the boy's eyes, Enel noticeably frowned and raised an eyebrow.

The showman continued his loud outbursts, "Now, my fellow guests, please take out your mobile devices and enter our site. The lowest bid tonight is ten thousand dollars! As high as the stakes are, the reward is just as high, as you will get not only double but  _triple_  the amount of your bet if you can correctly guess who wins tonight." He was hollering, rolling his tongue at the word 'triple' and raising his arms to enthuse the crowd.

Taking the bait, the crowd roared as a response and, presumably, went and bet as much as they could on the fight about to unfold in front of them.

Sanji began to explain the rules of the competition to Zoro, partly because he was trying to say that the elites were not here to partake in blood and gore but for financial benefit, which was a different type of disgusting in Zoro's silent opinion.

"They aren't all going to bet on Luffy just because they love him. They've done their research. They know the crown on Enel's head and the title he's upholding, and most people are putting their money toward him. Luffy is a great fighter and all, but he's lacking the reputation that Enel brings."

"That doesn't mean shit when it comes to the actual fight," he grunted, finding the whole ordeal rather stupid, reminding him of the men throwing their hard earned cash at the dancing strippers. 

The cook agreed with him. "Yeah it doesn't. To them it's more like a coin toss, 50/50 percent chance, but to people like us who know about martial arts it's clear who's going to win tonight." He was leaning sideways to speak closer to Zoro. His hot breath tickling the edge of his earlobes and sending electric shivers through his body. 

The green haired man still recalled the way their bodies pressed up against one another and wondered if Sanji felt the same as he did, or if it mattered to him at all. Then he recalled the small brush across the cook's cheeks and the way he looked up at him so aroused and almost intoxicated. A look he didn't care much for in the past but now it was all that he thought about, driving his libido up the wall. 

He wondered where all that sexual energy came from, where it had been dormant all these years and what it was about Sanji that stirred it. 

The tension between them had only been increasing minute by minute. He wanted to alleviate it by either fighting him or taking their clothes off to do whatever they felt they needed to do with one another. The unspoken words, the way tried to shift the focus to the fight in front of them, and the way Sanji's fingers grazed his legs and his hot breath tickled his ears; Zoro wondered if this was heaven or hell. 

_Is this shitty cook doing this on purpose?_

Another part of him was transfixed on the fear that had been there half an hour ago, a shadow left behind the man dressed in all black, Kaku. 

All sorts of questions rushed through his head after he had seen the man meander through the crowd of people, slipping through the small cracks like a snake, with an expression that told Zoro he was on a mission. 

Who was it that he was after?

When he told Sanji, he didn't seem to think much of it nor sweat over it like Zoro was doing. He pointed out that this place was a hub for people who belonged in the underworld, that it probably wasn't Zoro he was after.

Most likely, the organization thought he was dead. That's what he hoped for, but he also knew that they never took chances. If there was even the slightest percentage that he was still alive, then they would make sure to finish the job, whether that meant killing him or bringing him back. 

The thing that bothered him was that he never knew about this place, and the word hasn't spread across the organization. So the fact that Kaku slipped in and out of this place as though he knew it like the back of his hand didn't sit with him quite right. The question of whether he was looking for Zoro looped in his mind like Sanji's funny swirly eyebrows. But again, if he had been there for Zoro then he wouldn't have left so easily like that. If he had found out anything about Kaku over the years, it was that he never gave up on his missions and his targets. The man was conniving, coy, and persistent. The most perfect serial killer. 

He could kill body after body without ever getting caught.

"Zoro, the fight is about to begin," Sanji reminded him, nudging him gently with his elbows.

Next to Sanji sat Brook, Usopp, and Franky fighting over a large bag of popcorn.

"You already have two handfuls!" Usopp shouted, pushing Brook's head away from him; and in the midst of the chaos, Franky grabbed a few handfuls of his own.

"Shh, you idiots, the fight's about to begin," Sanji hushed them with a scowl. 

Zoro decided to push his worries away to the back of his mind until the fight is over.

The showman who had been at the center of the pit had disappeared elsewhere, out of the sight as the two fighters tip toed around one another, waiting patiently for the bell that would indicate the start of their fight.

A large, almost transparent screen dropped down from the ceiling, stretching across the entire arena above the two fighters, showing Enel and Luffy on the big screen and allowing thousands of others around Zoro to watch the fight closeup and not as small figures in the distance. Luckily for Zoro he didn't have to rely on the screen to watch the fight comfortably, as all of Luffy's friends sat front row seats.

The room darkened and the small lights surrounding the center of the pit lit up.

The crowd hushed and blended into the darkness, but Zoro and the others who were sitting in the front row seats still had light painted on their faces, spilled from the edges of the center stage stadium. 

The straw hat boy was brimming with pure robust energy, bouncing in place, his eyes lit with pure childish glee.

On the other hand, Enel had a look of haughty disdain, with cruel eyes and a frown from his initial impression of Luffy. He was probably dreading the upcoming fight, thinking that this would only be a waste of his time.

The announcer, who was out of sight and nowhere to be found, his recognizable voice rang throughout the entire stadium.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the long anticipated wait. The fight of the year will be starting in 3—2—1—!" and the bell echoed at the end of his sentence to initiate the long awaited fight.

The crowd roared, but it came to a halt as the action of the fight happened instantaneously.

As soon as the bell was heard, Enel threw a punch with his right arm, swinging it toward the raven haired man's face. A quick but powerful jab that probably would've left a dent on Luffy's face if it had landed.

Just as quickly if not quicker, Luffy dodged downward and swung his fist to meet the bottom of Enel's chin, sending the larger man to fly into the air and land with a soft thud on his butt.

The crowd roared from such an exciting initiation, shouting Luffy's name over and over, a mantra that his friends next to Zoro were happy to be a part of. "Luffy! Luffy! Luffy!" the idiots were singing, including Sanji.

Enel swiftly got on his feet and spat blood next to him.

His cocky expression and posture did not waver, but the hatred in his eyes shone intensely. "I underestimated you a bit," he mumbled, but his voice echoed loud enough to be heard by everyone as though there was a mic near him. "But I won't hold back anymore."

"Shishishi, bring it on," Luffy goaded, standing in the same place with his arms held out in front of him.

Enel suddenly closed the distance between them, dropped down to the ground and swung his leg in front of him in an attempt to trip Luffy. But without much surprise, the raven haired man jumped back passively, without showing much strenuous effort as though the kick had been made by an elderly man.

Without taking a break, Enel found stability with the leg he had just used and he jumped up to twirl and create momentum before landing a solid impact against Luffy's cheek, which created a loud thud and sent him flying across the floor. 

His body literally skidded against the ground until it slammed against the beige colored wall that barricaded the stadium.

Enel had a smile on his face, though it was nowhere near to being pleasant as Luffy's had been.

The crowd became quiet, though Zoro assumed they were more worried about losing money than Luffy being hurt.

The ones who actually cared for him didn't seem to be too worried.

Sanji had these unwavering eyes watching the fight, and the swordsman realized that the blond wasn't just watching but mentally putting himself in the fight against Enel, predicting his movements and studying his footwork. Watching the man study the fight so eagerly made Zoro want to fight him again, but seriously this time, without the restriction of his own injuries or worrying about wrecking anything in the house. And preferably with his swords too. The blond could definitely handle his swords.

"As if he didn't even take any damage, Luffy gets on his feet again!" the announcer screams, harshly breaking Zoro's attention away from Sanji.

To everybody's relief, the raven haired man was still smiling, though his cheek was bright red and a bit swollen.

"Huh, that was supposed to kill you," Enel states dully, his head lolling back. He suddenly seemed disinterested in fighting again. "I guess you just got some thick skin, but why aren't you attacking?"

Luffy laughed cheerfully. "I don't want to end it too quickly. This is fun."

His response created ripples of laughter in the stadium and it even brought the smallest grin to crack on Zoro's face.

A funny kid. He was savage without even trying to be.

A visible vein popped on Enel's head and he growled, "I'm going to kill you."

He charged forward like a bull and swung his fists, but unlike an amateur who learned his mechanical techniques from a textbook, the rhythm of his attacks seemed to be off tempo, unpredictable, and fast. It showed how experienced he was in fighting.

Almost like a dance, Luffy seemed to be swaying his body left and right, acting like a leaf in a tornado, dodging his attacks without a sweat. Zoro thought he was even closing his eyes. 

He made it seem all too easy. 

Evidently frustrated with the lack of attacks he was landing, Enel went for a low blow by tripping Luffy with his feet, and the young raven haired man roughly landed on his face. If that wasn't bad enough, he tried to finish it off by driving his elbow into Luffy's back, between the wings of his shoulder blades.

He used all of his weight and the momentum of the aiding gravity to propel all of his power into that fatal spot, and perhaps for a split second he really did intend to kill the straw hat boy. 

From the sudden and brutal attack, Luffy's body curved into a U shape and went limp, with clumps of blood splattering out of his mouth.

"Boo!" Usopp got on his feet and yelled. The rest of the crowd followed his lead and began to curse Enel out.

Zoro glanced at Sanji, wondering what he had to say about the foul play that occurred.

Catching his stare, Sanji's eye flickered toward him, curiosity and lingering excitement captured in the vast sea tinted with the glow of sunlight.

"What are you looking at, mosshead?" he asked, then perhaps he realized the concern written on his face. "Don't worry about Luffy. He's had way worse done to him. The more he gets hit, the stronger he gets. You'll see."

Zoro raised an eyebrow.

Although he didn't want to admit it, he felt a flutter of nerves coiling around his heart thudding under his left rib cage. He never gave away what he actually felt to Sanji.

The blond had no idea how he felt nor what he thought about him. 

The night they confessed whatever it was they felt to one another was like a distant dream, and it probably was, disappearing like the smoke trailing out of the cook's mouth. What was it that he felt, if not just an imitation of love toward a man whom he barely knew. They were nothing to one another. The sexual tension, the magnetic pull from something beneath himself, whatever the work of fate the romanticizing and completely delusional blond was talking about, it was nothing more than desperation.

Sanji was clearly just desperate to feel love, as he said about Nami being his last chance. He felt nothing since Nami, and Zoro was the next exciting chapter he found because there was no one else who could keep up with him. 

 _And_ , he'd like to add that Sanji was super drunk that night. It was more than possible that he said whatever he could to get laid.

It was true that they had a connection but it was so goddamn unrealistic and pathetic to get so worked up over someone he barely knew. Yet, here he was, racking his brain, trying to convince himself to stop feeling these  _unreasonable_ emotions toward Sanji.

Why did he feel like he'd known Sanji for a lifetime when he looks into those stunning blue eyes?

Without knowing the turmoil happening to the man next to him, Sanji seemed to be at peace, humming to himself and waiting patiently for Luffy to stand back up.

He had no idea how deep Zoro fell for him in such a short span of time.

"And again, Luffy's back on his feet! But when does he actually stay down? Never, I suppose.  _I've_ never seen it anyways," the announcer laughs.

"Enel looks like he's seeing a ghost!"

The swordsman turns away from Sanji, detaching himself from the overriding thoughts and emotions that are always about the blond man.

"How are you still moving?" Enel asked in confusion, suddenly interested in the fight and the man standing in front of him. "I made sure to deliver a killing blow. No one has been able to stand up after that move, let alone survive."

Luffy, who was no longer smiling, did not respond.

Instead, there was a look of determination and will, which indicated that he was finally taking the match seriously. He cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms out above him. Zoro could tell that something had changed. As though the raven haired man was commanding the entire stadium, the vibe of the place shifted and everybody seemed to be at the edge of their seats, anticipating for what to come.

He lowered himself into a squat position, and the more Luffy seemed to be stalling the more nervous Enel seemed to get, breaking away from his usual demeanor of cool aloofness.

His face had twisted into one of horror and panic when the squatting Luffy suddenly disappeared.

Enel stumbled from the place he stood from the very fact dawning upon him that he could not defeat this man in front of him.

To elaborate on what exactly occurred, Luffy used the blind spot in every human eye to move behind Enel. He leapt from his squatting position to quickly maneuver his way behind Enel, only taking a single step in the corner of Enel's eyes, where he could not see his opponent's lean figure. Perhaps for a single second he caught a wisp of where Luffy had gone, but by that point the young man had managed to wrap his arms around Enel's torso, lifted him off the ground, and slammed his head with the weight of his own body.

A famous wrestling move.

"Oh my god, he actually did it!" Usopp shouted, shaking Sanji by the shoulder.

"I didn't think he was serious when he said he was going to try that wrestler's move out. What was his name? Whatever, it doesn't matter, that kid is fucking insane."

"Whoo, Luffy!"

Enel coughed out blood, and he might've broken his neck if Luffy had been anymore brutal, but it was clear as day that he wasn't fighting to hurt others. It was simply for the adrenaline rush from fighting, which Zoro understood how addictive that could be.

The raven haired man started laughing, not in a way that was condescending or inflated with ego but a genuine, happy laughter from the pit of his abdomen.

"I've been wanting to try that out for so long! Thanks."

Zoro could understand the charm Luffy had over others, the reason why he was a more popular demand than Sanji, as suave and feisty the blond was naturally. There was something about the raven haired man that felt like a magnetic pull, a charisma of a king or a dictator, someone you'd want to keep your eyes on. He was like a breath of fresh air but also a monumental force of nature. It wasn't just an observation he'd made, but more of an obvious that he assumed everybody knew already.

Despite the fact that it was just a single hit, Enel stayed on the ground with a defeated look on his face. It was clear to him and the rest of the audience that the winner was Luffy.

Sanji shouted in Zoro's ear, as he couldn't suppress a triumphant roar along with the rest of the crowd, including the announcer himself. Even Zoro felt pride blooming inside of him despite the fact that he hardly knew Luffy, or the rest of them for that matter.

He let out a chuckle as Luffy gave them a peace sign and the widest smile he'd ever seen.

Just for a moment, he felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The group ended up in a bar called "Smiles," which they were apparently regulars to especially after a good fight or just for celebrations of any kind. The place was massive, with three floors. The bottom floor appeared like every other bar, and it was definitely quieter compared to the other two. The second floor was a dance floor and the third was for the VIPs. That was the gist that Zoro got after a quick explanation from Sanji.

The most fucked up part of the night, other than seeing Kaku, was that they simply exited from a door instead of leaving from where they had entered, by going through that nasty tunnel and exiting out of the rat infested warehouse.

The blond explained that the only people allowed to use the front door to this dome-like structure that resembled a university auditorium complex were the ones fully trusted and recognized by the securities in the front. The whole roundabout way was done so Zoro would not be weeded out by the heavier security in the front, guarded by guys like Kidd and Hawkins. The other entrances, like the one they had used, and a shit ton of others that even Sanji did not even know about, were guarded by small fries who wouldn't even dare stopping them by force knowing how capable the blond is as a fighter.

And when they left the building, Zoro noticed that the whole fucking place was next to a church, which was a cherry on top for the sinners who would definitely head straight to hell if the Christian God actually existed.

Despite the fact that the swordsman should be on his toes seeing Kaku earlier that night, he actually felt pretty loose and wasted, given how much liquor was in his system.

Luffy was strutting around the bar with a red crown on his head, holding up chicken wings for everyone to see. Anybody who noticed his outlandish behavior congratulated him by clapping him in the back or giving him more food, which he greedily accepted and gobbled up.

The rest of his friends were spread out.

Ace had left and agreed to take Sanji's motorcycle for him, a preemptive move knowing that the rest of them were going to get trashed.  

Brook was in the corner of the room, hitting on ladies left and right, asking for their numbers and the color of their panties, reminding Zoro of Sanji. The women either laughed it off or walked away with confused expressions. 

Franky was chatting with a woman, whose raven hair cascaded down her shoulders. She had a nose with a prominent bridge and almond shaped eyes, but she didn't look Asian nor did she look Caucasian. She looked native or mixed. She seemed to be a close friend of theirs as well, but she seemed more reserved than others, almost secretive, though she seemed to be pretty open around Franky.

Usopp, who had been avoiding Zoro in the earlier part of the night, finally sat down next to him and shared light conversations about his travels over glasses of rum. "So I was in California and I literally met these people I've never seen, only heard their voices during my games in CSGO, and it was the most surreal experience ever—"

Zoro's attention was disrupted when the blond took a seat next to him, who had a fruity drink in his hand and a ditsy grin on his face. He was pretty drunk by the looks of it.

The swordsman couldn't help but relax as the weight of the world seemed to lift from his shoulders with Sanji's presence so close by.

"—and I swear to god that he was part of the CIA from the shit he was leaking out to me. I was thinking there's no way in hell that a normal guy would know all that shit about the government!" Usopp continued to ramble, and there seemed to have been a huge jump in the story while Zoro's attention had been away for the last five seconds.

The long nosed man was grinning ear to ear, clearly buzzed from his adventurous memories and the sips of rum he was taking.

"So, you seem like a cool dude, Zoro, what made you want to be part of that organization?" he suddenly asked, obviously hesitant but curiosity lingering in his big eyes.

If it had only been a week ago, Zoro would've never told anybody his story because trust was an illusionary concept that realistically could never mold into this survival of the fittest type of world.

But he had already told Sanji, and trusting his friends only felt like the next step to do.

"I never joined—" he began to explain everything he had told the blond man next to him, and as his story continued Usopp's face shifted from one of horror to sadness to simple admiration. He seemed to be sympathizing with the swordsman's life, everything he had to overcome, but also happy for him for the very fact that he was here right now.

He was sniffing and tears were threatening to leak. "I didn't know. I just thought you were a murderer—"

Sanji cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the conversation and noticeably glaring at the long nosed man.

Although Zoro had never been called a  _murderer_  in the past, he wasn't particularly offended. He could see why people outside of his organization viewed him as such, since him and the other members of his organization were desensitized to the point where they saw human life as something mediocre, not anymore meaningful than crushing an ant.

Usopp stammered, panicking, "I—I mean, that's just what  _I_  thought, but it's not even your fault! You just have to do it, like a sword in someone else's hands!"

The swordsman laughed from the reference, throwing back the rest of his rum and hinting to the bartender for another round.

"That's what I think too," he responded.

"Oi, cactus head, who's paying for all of your drinks?" the blond grunted, rolling his eyes at him.

"You, of course, my sugar daddy," he smirked.

Usopp, who recovered from his emotions rather fast, made a gagging noise, "Please tell me you guys do not call each other  _daddy_."

Sanji grumbled, "I'm going to kill you, Usopp, and you too." He pointed the end of his straw at the swordsman.

"So, how old were you when you… had your first mission," Usopp switched the topic after a few seconds passed by, averting his eyes from the pressure of Sanji's glare. "How did it feel?"

The bartender came in front of them and refilled both Zoro and Usopp's cups, and made his way back to the side of the table to finish making a reddish orange drink, with a slice of blood orange sinked at the bottom.

Zoro furrowed his brows, thinking back on his memories, especially his missions that seemed to have blended with one another.

_After Kuina's death, the following days muddled into a series of happenings and Zoro's perception blurred into repetitive and rigorous days of training. He wanted to lose himself in those hours, physically straining himself and pushing the boundaries. Eventually, he became strong enough to beat some of the high ranking adults, fueled by the ball of anger at the pit of his abdomen for losing Kuina._

_He was only ten at the time._

_At his academy, which was in the guise of a regular school when in actuality it was, well, a training prison camp for orphans to become assassins, to put it lightly, the nurses and the caretakers recommended him to the headmasters._

_The headmasters, Zoro now understood them to be the trustworthy ones standing right below the boss himself. They were public figures with "headmasters" as their titles, to fool the rest of the world that they were simply facilitating the academy and honing the children's minds. They designated most of their time training the orphans and handling the business aspect of things, such as meal plans or getting sponsorship._

_It was all rather theatrical._

_Zoro recalled one of them. An amiable man with a round belly, visiting them quite often when he didn't have to, reassuring the children about their futures. He even comforted Zoro when he was about to leave for his first mission. Perhaps a part of him liked children, but it didn't really matter to the green haired boy at the time who was just angry at everything around him._

" _What an honor, Zoro, to be recognized so quickly and so young. Are you ready for this?" he asked in the car, as he was driving Zoro to meet his first partner and his new lifestyle._

_The boy glared at him, spitefully retorting, "Would you be ready to kill someone for the first time?" It was irritating him how happy this man seemed to be, so fucking relaxed and feigning empathy._

_The jolly man nodded, understanding. "I was never ready either," he said quietly. "All you can do is make the best out of it, I suppose."_

_The rest of the ride was quiet and the boy stared out the window, seeing the scenery switch from the masses of greenery and earthy hue to an industrious headquarter, a grey complex with fences surrounding the area. It looked like a prison._

_Before the man left, he gave a reassuring pat on Zoro's back. The little boy with three swords strapped around his torso, all three which were gifts from Kuina, walked inside feeling number than he'd ever felt before._

"I was young, just ten years old, and I couldn't feel anything for the longest time. So it didn't mean anything to me back then," he told them, with his fingers wrapped around his rum. "It sounds terrible but I don't even remember the faces of those I've killed, nor is there any significance in the fact that it was my first kill…"

The blond's face in front of him seemed pained, his facial expression contorted with contemplation and scrutiny.

"That's hardcore…" Usopp commented, mouth gaping with shock, his eyes darting to the side to steal a glance of Sanji's expression.

"Guys!" Luffy suddenly wrapped his arms around the three of them, his breath smelling like barbeque chips and garlic. "There's a drinking contest happening! Nami is playing, do you guys want to join too?"

Zoro raised an eyebrow, "Free drinks? Count me in, Luffy."

He was already feeling a bit buzzed but he couldn't say no to free drinks, and he wanted to find some sort of release from this buzzkill of a conversation. He knew that Usopp was just trying to get to know him better, and he was surprised at himself for revealing so much, but relaying this much about his past brought back a certain feeling of emptiness he couldn't shake off.

A part of him didn't want to see the blond's reactions either.

He followed Luffy and stumbled upon a large table with a gathering of men and women with shots in their hands. The swordsman took a seat next to Nami, leaving behind Sanji and Usopp by the bar.

Nami welcomed him immediately, clearly trashed already with her skin tone similar to the reddish orange hue of her hair.

"Zoro, you owe me fifty bucks if you lose," the red haired woman cackled in his ears, wrapping her long and thin arm around his neck.

Zoro frowned, "Hell no, I don't even have money to begin with!"

"Guess you're fucked if you lose then," she teased.

The swordsman rolled his eyes, "Yeah right, no one ever beat me in a drinking contest before

Nami scoffed, "We'll see about that."

He turned his head toward the bar and his eyes lingered on the back of Sanji's blond head, thinking what the hell he was thinking about.

Earlier today they had a whole argument about how hypocritical he was for thinking so low of the elites getting riled up from seeing blood and death while he himself didn't give a shit for killing people. It was true, Zoro had never even considered empathizing with the people he'd killed until he met Sanji and his friends, and recalling his past and thinking upon his actions was opening up a wound he thought he had closed up a long time ago.

The guy cradling a bottle of tequila warned the contestants before pouring the piss brown liquid into their glasses, "Since we don't want anybody to get alcohol poisoning, we'll be taking breaks every five shots. Know your limits, people, we don't want to haul an ambulance here."

Nami laughed, "They started taking precautions because an ambulance would be parked outside every week. I don't know why lightweights are partaking in a drinking contest."

Zoro smiled to himself.

It has been awhile since he last had the opportunity to get completely trashed like this and he was more than positive than the small woman next to him couldn't actually hold more liquor than him.

"Begin!"

They took shot after shot, with mini breaks in between. Luffy coming around with a bucket of chicken wings and fries for them to recharge with solid content in their stomachs, then they swished it down with five more shots. People began to slowly drop out, one by one, as they either rushed to the restroom or retched into the bucket by their feet, which was prepared beforehand by the bartender.

Eventually, after about the fifteenth shot, only Zoro and Nami were left to duel it out.

They stared each other down while taking shots together, and despite the fact that the red haired woman had been trashed already she didn't seem even a little bit phased by the amount of liquor she was drinking.

After his twentieth shot, the swordsman began to feel the blackness creeping around his consciousness, swallowing his vision and thoughts, but he tried to hold onto the faint remnants of himself and the people around him. He went under pretty quickly and he felt his consciousness leaving him, leaving him in a dreamlike state. 

_Sanji_

A name echoed in the hollow cranny of his skull, and he faintly remembered blond locks, curly shaped brows, and the wisp of smoke trailing his way. He wanted to hold onto him but the man seemed to be a mirage. A mere illusion. He could not do anything but watch those same features distort into raven haired locks and a little girl's face with a disapproving expression, saying something to him, but he couldn't hear a thing. He also tried to use his voice, but nothing came out of him either.

And little by little, she seemed to drift away into the distance, but the scowl on her face remained. He felt panic rising in his throat as he felt that he was losing her all over again.

_What is she saying?_

"Oi, Zoro, are you awake?"

He felt his body being shaken, and with that motion his consciousness snapped back into reality, realizing slowly that his body was slumped on the couch and the drinking competition had already dissolved.

Above him was Sanji, with a casual cigarette hanging low from his mouth. A look of concern apparent on his features.

"Sorry to say but Nami won and you owe her fifty bucks now," he told him nonchalantly, taking a seat next to the swordsman. "You passed out for like two hours. We thought you got alcohol poisoning and the bartender got all pissed off, but we realized you were just sleeping so we left you alone."

He tapped the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray.

The swordsman groaned as he tried to sit up, his head pounding harshly with the nastiest headache and hangover. 

"Fuck, I feel terrible." His voice cracked, and his tongue felt like sand lapping against the dry Sahara desert that were his lips. 

Sanji snorted, "As you should. What are you doing, taking twenty shots like that? You could've easily gotten alcohol poisoning."

Zoro rolled his eyes, coming to his senses faster with the blond's nagging buzzing in his ears.

"Give me a break, cook. You kill yourself everyday with cigarettes, and I can't enjoy my abusive alcoholic behavors?"

The blond chuckled. "Ready to go home?"

_Home?_

"Let's deal with all the bullshit in your life another day, I have to go to work tomorrow."

When the swordsman looked around him and Sanji, he noticed that the place has dwindled down in numbers. Most of his friends had left and Luffy was sleeping on the couch next to Zoro's, his face covered in barbecue sauce, snoring loud enough to start his own band.

At the mention of home, Zoro felt a sort of uneasiness creeping up on him. "I don't know if I should go home with you," he told the cook honestly, and in response Sanji opened his mouth to argue but Zoro cut him off. "When I saw Kaku earlier, I was honestly fucking terrified."

Despite the fact that he had been trying so hard to push it out of his mind, it bounced back like a yo-yo. 

Zoro realized that no matter how much he tries to fit himself into this life and these good people who're so ready to accept him, he belongs elsewhere.

The longer he stays the more likely that he'll bring trouble to hurt them. As safe as he feels in their presence, the reality is that a guy like Kaku can come in and kill all of them without leaving anything behind. He, too, had a life he couldn't run away from.

This was the reason why he felt so suffocated earlier under the careful scrutiny of Sanji and Usopp's, feeling as though he might be exposed any second that he was putting their lives on the line for his selfishness. 

He was something worse than a monster, as he was dragging around the shadow of death around causing mishaps anywhere he went. 

"I almost forgot the reality of my situation. I almost thought that everything was going to be fine, that I could just blend into this life that you already have, but when I saw Kaku I felt everything stop and get sucked into this black hole. My life. My reality. It all came back to me in full force. I can't just fuck around like this, I have to go back. The more you and your friends try to help, the worse it'll end. I can't have your blood on my hands, I already have enough."

He wasn't really trying to be chivalrous because it wasn't his nature, but he saw the future clearer than he had ever before and he imagined the crumpled bodies of Sanji and his friends sprawled out all around him, as he had seen so many times in the past with the bodies of those who mattered little to him. And again, for the first time as there had been a lot of first times in the past few days, he saw the burden of caring for someone else and imagined the pain of losing them.

A fire being lit from the pit of his abdomen, burning its way up to his heart and filling his chest with smoke, with a scent similar to the blond's cigarettes.

When he looked up to meet Sanji's eyes, he was surprised by the blond quickly putting out his cigarette on the crystal clear ashtray next to him.

"I'm a little bit offended, mosshead, that you think  _you_  can kill me or any of your assassin friends can," Sanji drawled his words out, his visible eye narrowing.

"That's not what—" he huffed out, annoyed.

"No, that _is_ exactly what you're saying," he growled, cutting him off. "I already showed you how strong I am and how strong Luffy is, yet you still think we're helpless little children against your enemies? You  _really_ think that we can't protect you, let alone protect ourselves? Don't fucking underestimate us."

The swordsman stopped in his tracks, contemplating over the blond's words.

He never considered to think he was actually hurting the man's pride by saying these words, but ironically if he were to hear his own words he would react the same.

When he was younger, he recalled the frustration he felt at hearing Kuina's complaints despite the fact that she had beaten him countless amount of times. He wanted to be the best yet she was an immense wall in his path, blocking him from moving forward no matter how hard he tried; yet, that little girl humiliated him by telling him that she wished she was a boy.

He felt so frustrated that she was demeaning his efforts, indirectly telling him that even if he were to beat her he only did it because he's a man and she's a woman. She took that satisfaction away from him, making him more pitiable than she did that night beneath the illuminating moonlight. His pride was ripped away by her hands.

He wondered if that's what Sanji was feeling.

The blond's eyebrow twitched in surprise and his breath hitched in his throat before he could speak another word. His adam's apple bobbled up and down beneath the ivory skin of his neck, giving away his nervousness as the green haired man leaned forward slowly, his hand trailing its way to the familiar curve of Sanji's waist.

Zoro flicked his eyes from his visible blue eye to the aquiline shape of his nose, then his pink and supple lips which was parted ever so slightly, exhaling a hot breath of air that smelled like liquor and smoke, a combination of sin and pleasure.

" _Fuck_ ," Sanji groaned, a husky vibration that thrilled the swordsman, sending a shiver down to his slight arousal.

Zoro pulled the blond closer, facing his body to his own and getting close enough to brush his lips against Sanji's, who sighed into the gentle touch and brought his chin forward to kiss the man.

His throbbing head was buzzing with excitement when Sanji furthered the kiss and he was able to taste the man's smoky breath on his tongue. His hand clumsily snaking its way underneath his shirt to feel his hard muscles yet thin frame. He had no experience at this, as his tongue that was dancing with the blond's felt foreign and stiff. The blond, who seemed to be an expert, guided him and led the gentle kiss to plunge into a fervent motion of tongues and lips. The fire of anguish and fear he had felt earlier became an ever burning fire of need and desire, and he dove in over and over to meet the vigor of the blond's passion. His grip around the blond deepened, burying his fingers into his skin, which might leave a bruise in the future, but all he was concerned with in the moment was how it caused the blond to moan.

The warmth emanating from Sanji's lips, the taste of the smoke, the scent of his pheromones and spice. It was all so addicting.

"Zoro—wait, Zoro," he placed the flat of palm on the swordsman's chest, pulling away from the kiss. His cheeks were flushed and his breathing had gotten heavier.

More than anything, Zoro wanted to kiss him again.

"We should go home. We're still at the bar." Sanji reminded him while nervously looking around. Though it was dark, he seemed wary about people watching them. "My pants are… getting tight and I don't think we should continue here."

He made sense. He really did, but there was a feeling of hunger that he had never known about gnawing away at his insides.

Zoro met Sanji's eyes, which stared at him with such sincerity and intensity, simultaneously filling his gnawing hunger with a feeling of fullness he vaguely remembers from his childhood days spent with Kuina, while emptying him out completely of everything he ever thought he was. 

He suppressed his desires and got up from the couch, suddenly remembering his headache from the drinking competition. He wondered if he was still drunk, but quickly answered his own question when he stumbled from his stance.

"Let's go home," he said, offering his hand out toward the sitting blond. "Princess," he snorted with laughter at his own gesture and Sanji taking it so eagerly.

"Jackass," the blond rolled his eyes, but the corners of his lips curved up into a smile.

The two of them, and the rest of their friends, had forgotten about the snoring winner of the night sleeping on the couch with barbeque sauce smudged all over his face. 

* * *

 **AN:**  Thank you for your comments and support! I've been so busy with work and side hustles, but reading those comments really bring a smile to my face. I still don't know how long this fanfic is going to be, just trying to go with the flow. I might be doing some heavy editing soon to make the story flow better. Since I've been on hiatus for a long time after chapter 3, there's a weird shift in my writing from pre-twenties to now, and I've tried to compensate by continuously going back and re-reading what I wrote, but I think it might be best to edit the entire thing. This is all a hypothetical since I'm really hyped about writing the story right now. 

As you can tell, I love writing about Luffy and I've read many fanfics that involve underground fighting, but I haven't come across one with Luffy involved in those fights so I decided to make him the hero. I've also been reading so many fanfics about LawLu that I'm honestly torn whether I should include them! Let me know what you think!

 


	8. Recollections

The swordsman's consciousness was in the midst of being asleep and awake, as it always was when he attempted to sleep, and some might call it insomnia but he liked to see it as a keen sense of awareness. It was something he had developed over the years, as assassins never had a moment of peace and was constantly on the verge of being attacked. And so when Sanji woke up at five in the morning to go to work, which was only an hour after they'd both crashed into their respectful places of sleep, the swordsman was aware of the blond's sluggish movements dragging across the floor and hearing his yawns being released every five seconds.

A part of him had wanted to follow the cook, perhaps to see his workplace and all, but if he were to be honest with himself somewhere in his guilty conscience he just wanted to spend more time with the man, which was a trait of himself that annoyed him.

After all, who could imagine Roronoa Zoro as a clingy teenager fawning over their crush?

The entire ride home, which was in the backseat of an Uber, they spent the ride with their restless hands palming each others' flushed skins with their lips locked, moving in waves of lustful desires. Zoro felt the warmth emanating from Sanji's body. He was just so damn  _hot_ , literally, and touching him sent heat to travel throughout his entire body.

His mind was running a million miles per hour as the dim light of the passing lamp posts occasionally showed him the orange tint on the blond's ivory skin, revealing the wanton expression of Sanji's face that was more erotic than anything he had ever seen before.

Sanji's eyelid had drooped low and his alto, sultry voice whispered dirty things in his ears.

And in the obscurity of the darkness surrounding them, with the Uber driver so far away from the world they were in, he was exposed to the depth of his feelings that seemed to yearn and ache. Despite how much he was feeding his appetite with the taste of the blond man, he didn't feel any satisfaction.

_Why does he taste so damn good?_

The cook tasted like alcohol, cigarettes, and spices. It was everything he had ever imagined. It was everything he had ever wanted even if he never knew it until that moment.

 _I could live in this moment forever._ A wistful thought passed his mind and it surprised the shit out of him.

He knew how dangerous this was, the game that they were playing, because life wasn't fun and games for them but survival and war. Yet, he felt his control slipping as his hands kneaded Sanji's waist and the tip of his index finger reached out to brush past his, though he could not see them in the darkness, what he would imagine very rosy nipples that had protruded from its natural appearance.

Sanji suppressed a moan at the sudden touch and brought down his forehead to fit between the nape of the swordsman's neck, breaking away from the kiss. With a gentle nudge of his cheeks, he pushed the blond's head to fall away from him so he would have open access to nibble on his ears.

"That tickles," Sanji murmured with a breathy chuckle.

With Sanji so close to him and seeing how perfectly they fit in each others' bodies, molding into one another; the warmth emanating from the cook's bodies becoming his own, permeating through his body and spirit, he suddenly felt so overwhelmed. He felt the emotions, remnants from what he'd felt earlier with the images of the blond's blood dried on his hands. A million epiphanies became a single realization and the crippling fear that he'd never known he could feel became immensely palpable.

"Shit Sanji, I can't be doing this. I don't want you to be hurt. I don't want to hurt you," he was mindlessly rambling, whispering his darkest fears into his ears and causing him to shudder.

Sanji stared at him, deadpan and unamused. "Shut up and kiss me, you idiot swordsman," he grouched.

If his fear was as immense as a mountain then his desire for the blond was fucking cosmic.

_I'm fucking up so bad and I don't even care anymore._

There was a guilty conscience, sure, but it no longer mattered to him as his mouth eagerly dived for more, enjoying his tongue intertwining with the cook's and finding a steady rhythm in their dance.

The blond was palming his chiseled chest, the hard ridges of his abs, and his hands seemed to creep lower ever so slowly to ease Zoro's pants down, bit by bit.

It all seemed so natural until the car came to a stop in front of Sanji's place and the driver broke the silence with a nervous clear of his throat.

"We arrived," he reminded the two men intimately engaged in his backseat.

Zoro didn't even know what the hell the man even looked like because he was so focused on Sanji and everything else was just a wallpaper fading into the background. He had a semi hard-on for god fucking sakes, he couldn't give a damn if the driver was a goddamn serial killer, though that wouldn't matter to him anyways.

He just wanted to hold Sanji in his arms.

"Thank you," Sanji told the driver sheepishly, clearly a bit embarrassed about his actions. It seems that he had also forgotten about the driver's existence as well.

When the two men hit the night air, Sanji took a deep breath, one from the pit of his abdomen to release all sorts of things that were buried deep within. "I'm going to have a smoke before going in, you wanna join me?"

The swordsman nodded his head, feeling his body cooling down from the cool air nipping his skin and his semi hard-on falling limp against his left leg.

_It's fucking cold._

The two men stood beneath a lamp, which illuminated the small space around them.

"Oi, mosshead, I've been dying to ask this question. But do you know who your parents are?" the blond asked as his fingers dragged out a single cigarette from his carton that had Marlboro written in bold black letters.

Zoro frowned at the question, at the randomness and the unpredictable nature of his intentions.

"No," he answered succinctly.

Sanji took out a gold lighter from his pocket and flicked open the lid with his thumb in a slick motion, then firmly pressed the switch to bring out a soft orangish yellow flame to flicker in front of him. He lit his cigarette inside the dome of his hands, protecting the flame from the passing wind.

"So you're an orphan, then." It wasn't much of a question, just a simple statement from the tone of his voice. "Maybe you can do some sort of a DNA test that'll trace you to two people in this world."

"Who knows," the swordsman shrugged.

"Way to completely shut down the conversation, jackass," he huffed with a slight roll of his eye. "I'm just trying to get to know you, that's all."

Zoro, with knitted brows, asked seriously, "Why do you want to get to know me so bad? I barely know anything about you."

The blond contemplated his words, took a soft puff of his cigarette and blew it out to the side, where it was briefly visible in the luminescent light shone in front of the lamp.

"I mean it's not everyday that I meet an assassin, or any former assassin. That and the fact that we just made out at the bar and the backseat of an Uber, so I think I have a few good excuses for why I am so interested in getting to know you," he defended himself, then paused for a few seconds. "But you are right about hardly knowing me. To be fair though, I don't think anybody really knows who I am since I don't talk about myself all that much."

 _He never talks about himself, but no one really asks about him either._ A sense of guilt ran through him, as he himself never voiced any interest in getting to know him.

He knew that Sanji was a womanizing bastard but also gay?

The only thing he really told Zoro was his one-sided love toward Nami back in high school, but he was inebriated at the time while staring at her, so it was no wonder that he told him about that particular memory.

He loves martial arts and cooking, really excellent at both, but he never talked about his dreams.

Does he want to become the best chef in the world? Does he want to do something more with his martial arts skills other than fight in underground battles? Or, was he just the type of person who was content with whatever he had and didn't care to ask for more. Zoro could see that. He couldn't see Sanji as materialistic, with a gluttonous appetite for money and power, all that superficial bullshit that outlined the humanity he had come to know.

"Tell me about something then, cook, I'm listening. Something important that you hadn't really told others."

Sanji raised a brow at that, "Now what makes you so fucking special that you think I'd just tell you?"

It was always a push and pull type of game with him. A fucking game that stimulated him head to toe.

"Same reason as yours. We just shoved our tongues down each others' throats and practically dry humped in the backseat of someone else's car, what more reasons do you want?"

"True," he agrees with a slight chuckle.

As though a sudden thought occurred in his mind, he frowned and looked up. "By the way, do you think we should talk about that?"

"Talk about what?"

The blond threw the butt of his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the soles of his shoes, before taking out another one and placing it in between his teeth. "What do you think, dumbass? I'm talking about what it meant for the two of us."

"What, the kiss?" Zoro asked, perplexed by the indirect way in which the blond was talking.

 _Why do you have to talk in codes?_ he wondered silently.  _Spit it out,_  he wanted to say.

"Yeah, did it… mean anything?" He was giving Zoro these puppy dog eyes and his lips were pursed in a way that came across as a pout, and all he wanted to do was bring the cook by the waist and kiss him again.

It didn't occur to Zoro that the man in front of him was actually innocent, especially from the way Sanji seemed to expertly lead their kisses and seduce him in a way that drove him wild.

Sanji wanted their kisses to mean something, for Zoro to feel something toward him.

_Does he have feelings for me?_

It was true that they both felt something. They admitted to one another that there was some work of fate happening between them. To simplify what this meant, Zoro understood this as there was a reason for why they met. The feeling was so obvious that it almost scared him, in a different sense than when he'd seen Kaku, and he knew Sanji felt it too. As though they had known each other for so many years already, they felt innately comfortable in each others' presence.

That might explain their unresolved sexual tension, the way they liked provoking each other, but could it also mean they actually  _liked_  each other?

"What do you want it to mean?"

The blond cleared his throat nervously, taking a long hiatus by drawing in as much smoke into his lungs as possible. "Why are you turning the question on me?"

Zoro laughed, "You still haven't answered my other question and you have a habit of turning the conversation away from yourself."

"Shit, I gave that away about myself, didn't I," he cursed to himself mostly, a flare of self-irritation. As he had nowhere else to go or a way to shift the conversation beneath the steel gaze of the swordsman's, he gave out a long sigh that seemed to say "Fine, you win, I'll do as you say."

"Give me a question and I'll answer it as truthfully as I can," he invited.

It wasn't that Zoro was power-hungry but the sudden turn of events gave him a boost of adrenaline to run havoc in his bloodstream, giving him a deep satisfaction for having the situation in his favor over the powerful man in front of him.

"What's your dream then?" he demanded. "Is there anything that you even want? You have a nice house, your own restaurant, and you can let out any steam in those underground fights." He didn't mean to sound so fucking bitter about it, but the tone of his voice gave that away.

To his surprise, Sanji remained calm.

"The house and the restaurant were given to me by my dad, or the man who adopted me, so it wasn't anything I'd achieved with my own hands. I might sound like a spoiled brat but I don't feel any satisfaction from having those things. I just found it my duty to continue the legacy for my pops."

_He's an orphan?_

Zoro found some relief in that for some hell of a reason he couldn't understand. "So what would give you satisfaction then?"

"I'm getting to that," he snapped without much bite, rewinding himself from his hotheaded reactions and carefully choosing his next words. "For one, I've always wanted to find love before I die, like a soulmate but not in a cliché way. I never wanted to settle for anybody. I'm a romantic but I'm careful with falling in love, and ever since Nami I never found anyone I was attracted to…"

There were words left unsaid but it was as clear as day from the way he glanced up with his mouth parted.

_Until you…_

The swordsman felt his cheeks warming up and decided that it was a good thing that they were talking about this in the dark.

"You have a long time before you die," he answered lamely, and he inwardly wondered  _what the hell?_ to himself.

Sanji ignored his comment and continued. "I'm pretty happy about my position as a chef, and Baratie is getting recognized worldwide. The other day someone nominated Chef Gordon Ramsay to come and criticize my cooking, but he ended up offering me a job instead and gave me a chance to travel to hone my skills, widen my talents."

"So, did you take it?" Zoro asked curiously.

The blond shook his head slowly and his eyes seemed to be somewhere else. "I can't because I have to take care of my old man's business. I can't let him down."

"Well, you're not letting him down by following your own dreams," he fired back, suddenly finding himself annoyed from the lack of will shown by the other man. "You can always come back to the restaurant."

"It's not that simple," he spat angrily, and Zoro almost thought his leg would fly out to kick him in the head again. "I have things that I  _have_ to do here, and I can't fucking indulge in everything I want to do. I'm not a  _child._ "

The way he said the last word seemed to be an insult, as if calling Zoro a child for thinking that dreams can come true.

Before the swordsman could say anything, Sanji interrupted, "Don't take this the wrong way but my dream isn't like yours. It's  _not_ realistic."

The swordsman furrowed his brows. How would  _he_  know if his dreams were realistic or not if he never asked about them, though they were pretty obvious with his three swords lying around in Sanji's living room.

If Zoro's dream was 'realistic', as Sanji put it, then it must mean the blond is chasing a literal dream, one made out of faeries and dragons.

"When I was a kid, I picked up a book about this place called 'All Blue', and it's basically equivalent to the legendary city of gold or Atlantis, something historically recorded but since no one found it, it's just a mythical tale. The sailors and pirates recorded it to be this amazing place filled with sea creatures from all over the world, and some chefs say that they've seen it but most of them are just lies to get more publicity."

Zoro could tell how much the blond was underplaying his 'dream' and trying to make it ought to be something he wasn't completely excited about.

"My old man used to believe in All Blue too," he mumbled, and Zoro sensed a tremendous amount of sadness at the mention of his old man.

He knew it was pushing it but he decided to try anyways.

"What happened to him?" he asked carefully and quietly, as though he was afraid of scaring off a fawn resting peacefully in front of him.

Sanji threw down the remaining of his cigarette on the concrete and crushed it, averting his gaze from the swordsman's. Just for a second, though it was faint and almost missed, there was an unmasked expression of pure hatred and anger burning hotter than anything he'd felt, even more than his own lust for the cook.

"Maybe another day," his voice was a controlled calm, an odd feeling of tranquility before the inevitable storm.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

During the time Sanji was at work, the swordsman found leftover shrimp and fried rice cooked in tomato sauce in the refrigerator. Without heating the plate up, he took it to the couch in front of the plasma screen television and ate it cold, hovering his thumb over 'Netflix' on the remote control. He seldom had quiet and carefree days like this in the organization, watching shows the other guys had already put on and analyzing the culture outside of what they were accustomed to.

He liked a few animes, crime and mystery shows, and action films despite how exaggerated they were. He enjoyed anything with swords in it or any classic Japanese films.

Though he didn't have any strong evidence like a birth certificate, he was pretty sure that he had Japanese blood coursing through him like Kuina. It would explain why he was so fond of katanas and samurais.

With curiosity, he used the arrows on the remote to flick through "My List" and "Continue Watching for Sanji" in an attempt to understand what kind of shows the cook was into. Most of them were cooking shows, like "Chef's Table" and "The Final Table" but some rom-com movies and reality tv shows were mixed in there. The most recent thing he had been watching was "Terrace House," a Japanese reality television show meant to be as realistic as possible with their interactions. Zoro watched it a couple of times in an attempt to pick up some Japanese phrases, but found it to be too lackluster and action deprived for his liking.

He settled on watching the latest season of "Black Mirror" and grabbed himself a few fruits to munch on.

The episode was about an old (not too old, perhaps around their late 30s) married couple who clearly lost the spice of their passion and only had sex in hopes for the wife to become pregnant. The husband, who typically stayed up late at night to play video games, received a VR set and the newest street fighter game from one of his old friends, who was also a man. The VR sets transported their consciousness into the game, making the experience hyper realistic and surreal, reminding Zoro of some futuristic anime movies released in the 1990s. Then the unexpected, though he should've expected it, happened as the two men who were in the hyper realistic game kissed, which then escalated into fervent sexual intercourse the time and time they came online afterwards.

It wasn't that he felt shy about what was happening on the screen in front of him, but he couldn't help but remember the touch of Sanji's skin and the way he kissed him last night; and how badly he wanted to fuck him raw.

But the image of Sanji's hateful expression was etched deeply in his mind and it bothered him.

He had never expected Sanji to have such an expression, or even have such an emotion. He was certainly tough on the exterior, but through the cracks—as Zoro discovered through their interactions—actually rested a pool of warmth, passion, and kindness beyond anything he could've ever imagined. The only thing he knew for sure was that something terrible had happened to his father, and it left a wound so deep in Sanji's heart that it turned into resentment. Beneath the surface, however, was a vast amount of pain that pulsed with each breath he took.

That was something Zoro understood, as he had not been himself for many years after Kuina's death and he, disgracefully, expressed his anger through the acts of killing.

After the episode, which he didn't pay much attention to, he decided to sit by the window and meditate, become translucent in his consciousness and emotions.

While he didn't have many chances to meditate in the past since he was always busy with his missions and distracted by the rowdiness of other guys, when he finally found a quiet space to clear his mind his meditative experiences have been rewarding and transcending.

Through meditation he found himself again and managed to pacify the endless pit of anger that had made a home in his heart.

He sat cross-legged on the cool and hard wooden floor and had the back of his hands gently placed on his bare muscular legs, with his eyes naturally closed, and steady breaths flowing in and out of his nose and mouth.

It was always difficult in the beginning to settle down, as his mind wandered off and did as many things as possible before it allowed him to step away from himself. He didn't really have an intention nor a mantra, rather, he simply liked listening to the happenings around him and being present in the moment. In a way, through meditation he allowed himself to disappear into thin air while simultaneously being present more than ever before.

He lost himself in the stream of time until his concentration was broken by the blond coming in through the front door, his oxford shoes tapping against the floor and what sounded like plastic bags shuffling.

"Marimo," Sanji singsonged when he pushed the door and stepped inside the house.

Zoro opened his eyes slowly, allowing the initial fuzz of the reality to settle in, to see the blond by the kitchen counter putting away the groceries one by one into the refrigerator and leaving some out, presumably for dinner.

"What are you doing?" he asked loudly, since he was standing quite far from where the swordsman was sitting. "Oh, you ate the rice? Was it good?"

Since he didn't feel like yelling back, he jumped up from where he was sitting and made his way over to Sanji, ignoring the buzz in his abdomen and the strange fuzzy feeling below his chest. He never felt those things before, so he wondered whether he was sitting down for too long, but the feeling increased almost painfully the closer he got to Sanji. He smelled the familiar smokey scent, mixed with the spices of a kitchen violating his senses and, as strange as it was, it aroused him.

The swordsman nodded, answering his question about the rice. A fat lump was stuck in his throat and he couldn't swallow it no matter how much saliva he collected in his mouth.

Sanji didn't seem to notice, as he was humming to himself and firing up the kitchen stove.

"What did you do while I was gone?"

"I was—", his voice cracked so he cleared it before continuing his sentence, "—watching Black Mirror and meditating."

"Oh?" his pitched raised. "I didn't know you could meditate, you should teach me how to do it."

"Have you tried?"

Sanji shook his head, making eye contact for a split second before jumping back to his tasks. "I did a few times, but I find my mind to be too distracting and I can't focus, or let my mind go or whatever. Maybe I'm trying too hard."

Zoro leaned his elbow against the marble counter, contemplating his own struggles with meditation and how he overcame them.

"Maybe," he agreed. "I can't really tell you what to do, I think everybody has their own way of doing things. For me the key is to blend into things, even your thoughts and eventually you'll find yourself stepping away from them like it's not even you thinking those thoughts, and they're just happening like everything around us."

"Huh," Sanji mused, sounding neither confused nor condescending, just a filler masquerading as a response.

"I could teach you sometimes if you'd like," he suggested awkwardly, scratching the back of his head and staring off to the side.

Why did he feel so goddamn uncomfortable? Were his palms sweating? He'd never felt so uncomfortable talking to anybody else before. Sure, he was usually withdrawn and he'd rather ignore people than talk to them, but this was Sanji in front of him—curly browed, hotheaded, shit talking cook.

There was no reason for him to feel… suffocated? Antsy? Or, perhaps, nervous?

"Okay, marimo, you can teach me how to meditate and I can teach you how to properly fight," the blond cackled, and luckily for Zoro it was the perfect response to make him feel normal again.

A low rumble passed by the swordsman's throat and he grouched, "You talk the talk but can't walk the walk, curly-cue dartbrow. I can beat you anytime, any day, even with my eyes closed." There was a hint of sass in his tone, something he had probably gotten from Sanji.

On a regular day, Sanji might've thrown a kick to his face but he seemed to be in an awfully good mood today, as he simply chuckled in response and continued to chop the onions into small pieces of squares.

"Sure, marimo," he teased, a faint smirk marking his features and the crease around the corners of his eyes deepening. "You say that but the other day you got yourself kicked across the house and we had to call Chopper to fix you up."

"Hey! I was injured, and now I'm barely healing thanks to your irrational, emotional ass," he complained loudly, feeling the exchange between them fueling his energy.

"Yeah, yeah," he dismissed. "You're full of shit."

He was grinning from ear to ear. It was so fucking  _fun_  playing around with him, shit talking back and forth.

"Oi, earth to marimo," Sanji called out to get his attention, all of a sudden so serious in expression. "I got a call from Law earlier, and he told me that he has a lead on Lucci. He'll be coming by later to give us some 'top secret information'."

"Already? I thought he said he'd take awhile," he asked with an incredulous tone.

The blond poured the vegetables and rice into the stir-fry pan and expertly maneuvered the vegetables by the handle, tossing in spices with his left hand then coating it with a rich brown sauce that thickened and brought together the entire dish.

"Ace was able to get the information pretty quickly from his pops and he gave Law a slight lead, which he was able to use to get whatever information he has for us." He tossed the content inside of the pan into the air, shuffling it up and down with a circular motion of his wrist. "Anyways, our group can work pretty fast and believe it or not, we're used to this type of shit."

Zoro rolled his eyes at that, disbelieving that anything they'd experienced was remotely close to resembling his own life.

He tried to keep the accusatory tone to a minimum but it slipped like a vile scent encased inside a jar. "You mean this crazy shit, tapping into and out of illegal organizations and fighting underground for some extra cash? Or are you talking about the fact that there are people after your ass, trying to kill you because you belong in a shitty organization that took away your identity and your very existence on earth."

"Both," he replied succinctly, turning off the fire and resting his pan on the stove while he grabbed two plates from the shelves.

The swordsman had to raise a brow at that, completely thrown off by the casual response.

Sanji brought the two plates with stir fried rice and vegetables coated in what seemed like sweet brown, sticky sauce, and placed them on top of the cool, flat surface of the marble counter. The smell was so intoxicating that every muscle in his body seemed to be pulling him toward the plate, demanding him to satiate its ravenous appetite.

To not seem too eager, he sat down on the stool with his eyes on the plate while the blond grabbed two forks for them.

As the swordsman was chowing down on the delicious food, the sauce elevating the dish with its sweet, spicy, sour, and slightly salty flavor, Sanji further elaborated on what he meant.

"We all relatively had a difficult past. One of the reasons why I was so attracted to Nami was because she shared my pain of losing a parent. Her mom, Bellemere, died on a drug raid that escalated into a gun battle. They weren't expecting the house to be protected by an underground mob, led by a man named Arlong, nor were they notified that almost every member inside the house would be equipped with a firearm."

Zoro looked up to stare at Sanji, who was in a trance with eyes that seemed to be caught in between the past and the present. 

"Usopp, Luffy, Franky, and Brook all grew up without their parents. That's how they grew up to be so damn charismatic, and by that I mean they are able to draw people to them like flames to a moth no matter where they go. They were able to survive because they were able to adapt. Anybody who meets them are willing to help them out."

"You mean moths to a flame," Zoro corrected.

This seemed to snap the blond out of his trance, who stared at him in surprise as though he'd just realized that Zoro was sitting in front of him.

"Yeah."

Instead of digging into his plate, he took out a cigarette in its stead. Zoro wondered if he was even hungry as he was leaving his food untouched while Zoro had eaten his entire plate already.

"Chopper might be the luckiest one out of all of us since he had a stepfather who died of natural causes and a granny who took care of him. She's the one who taught him everything he knows now. Robin and Law were the most unfortunate ones. While Law was running away his whole life from an underground family led by Donquixote Doflamingo, Robin was running away from a secret government agency called the CP9, something that's equivalent to the CIA but I heard it's even more secretive than that."

Despite the fact that his head was buried deep in the underground world, he realized he really knew nothing of it or the people involved. He was just a mere tool in the shed, utilized at their dispense.

It was no wonder that they got along. They actually understood him. They shared his past.

"A few years back, with the influence of Luffy's grandfather, Garp, and Ace's godfather, Whitebeard, they were able to place Law and Robin into Protective Services and disguise their identities from anybody looking for them. I know that they willingly gave their identities away and yours was forcefully taken, but I think they would understand your situation nonetheless."

He blew out a fat smoke into the air, and Zoro noticed that the steam from Sanji's plate had already dissipated.

Again, the same thought occurred to him that by some fate, or God's will if there was such an existence, a stroke of luck had swung his way as he was able to meet Sanji and his group of friends.

 _This is fucking insane, Kuina_.

He could almost hear her childish laughter ringing in his ears, telling him "I told you so" many times over.

Then another thought occurred to him, a rather important one, and his heart started racing as he saw a streak of light at the end of the tunnel or hope at the bottom of Pandora's box; the rope that was starting to fall into whatever deep shit of a hole he was stuck in. If Law and Robin were able to disguise their true identities, would it be possible for him to get a new one?

The type of freedom that he had always longed for, it seems to have unfolded itself right in front of him.

His thoughts and whatever Sanji had the say next were impeded by the sound of the doorbell ringing, and both of them knew that it would be Law standing in front of the door.

* * *

 **AN** : I'm a huge fan of "Terrace House" but I assumed Zoro wouldn't be the type to be into a reality tv show involving romance and drama.   
  
Reviews are much appreciated and I absolutely love reading them. 


	9. Let's Talk about Sex, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter will refer to the usage of recreational drugs and explicit sexual content

When Trafalgar Law came in, Zoro was a bit thrown off to see the man's tanned skin contrasting his bright yellow shirt, with a smile for a logo that was as mischievous as the one on his face. He had a white fur hat on with brown dots splattered at the base as a design, and similarly done to his blue jeans.

He seemed to be awfully cheery about something, and he gave a knowing nod to Zoro which he returned with a slight raise of his head.

"Oi, smells good in here, Sanji-ya," he remarked, waltzing toward the counter where Zoro was sitting and glancing at Sanji's untouched plate. "Do you have anymore?"

The blond man nodded, "You always ask that knowing I make extra whenever you come over."

He grabbed an extra plate and poured him a serving, sliding it over his way as the tanned man made his seat next to Zoro.

The swordsman smelled a masculine scent of cologne masking a lingering smell of pot, and he glanced up to see that the man's eyes were indeed a bit pinkish and his eyelids were dropped lower than the last he'd seen him. When he rolled up his sleeves to eat, Zoro glanced at his tattoos that covered his arms and hands, with death written on his fingers.

He was quick to praise Sanji. "This is really good, Sanji-ya, no wonder your restaurant has a great rating on yelp."

Law showed the same amount of restraint as Zoro had, which is to say, isn't much at all. But they weren't like Luffy, shoving down plate after plate into an empty abyss and sending them into an alternate universe, which was the only explanation for his insatiable hunger.

Sanji chuckled, "Thanks for the fake reviews you guys put up there, they were fucking hilarious."

"Luffy wrote them and Usopp grammatically checked his writing. I don't know how he's attending college with those writing skills. It seriously looked like it was written by a kid," he remarked with a tone that wasn't condescending but with an earnest concern.

Zoro raised a brow, "Wait Luffy goes to college?"

Even putting "Luffy" and "college" together in a single sentence sounded so ludicrous. He couldn't have guessed, not in a million years, that the kid was able to sit in a lecture hall for hours on end listening to some professor in a tweed jacket talking about quantum theories or literature. He barely had any attention span to listen to the end of a sentence without heading off somewhere else.

The blond nodded with a slight smile, understanding completely how the green haired man was feeling.

"I know, it's completely unexpected," Sanji explained as he made his way back to his seat across from Zoro. "He's in school for foreign affairs because Garp wants him to follow his footsteps and be involved in politics and international activities, some shit like that, but Luffy only agreed because he's able to study abroad and travel freely for the next three years."

"He wants to travel, see the world, meet new people, by a boat if possible. Garp is fooling himself thinking that Luffy gives a rat's ass about politics or government affairs."

Law added, "He always  _somehow_  gets involved with a criminal organization, and he acts rashly against them in order to help somebody. He's never done anything unlawful but the cops could have easily arrested him for interference if Garp wasn't so powerful and influential. I doubt Luffy would care if he was a criminal though."

"He'd probably find excitement in running away to lawless islands."

"Why a boat?" Zoro asked, thinking how random it was for such a topic to be weaved into the conversation.

Sanji chuckled, "He loves pirate movies, anime, and television shows. He always raves about how he'd die to have that sort of lifestyle, living unbound by societal laws and having the true freedom to do whatever he wants to do."

Zoro silently agreed with that logic. For that same reason, he'd always wanted to live as a nomad from the Edo period, wandering from land to land and finding food along the way.

"Usopp also goes to college with Luffy and he majors in mechanics and computer science, but he's actually training to become a marine. His dad is one of the best snipers in the world, and he's trying to follow his footsteps," Sanji explained to Zoro, with his elbows on the marble counter and his hands cupping the base of his chin.

Law let out a satisfied sigh after he'd finished his meal, thanking Sanji for the food.

"Okay," his tone switched into all seriousness, a familiar one to the one he'd heard the first night they met. "Let's begin."

He dug for his smartphone in his pocket and typed furiously with his thumbs.

"Your name is Roronoa, right?" he asked without looking at his direction. The swordsman gave a mumbled 'yes' as a response. "I found a few pictures of Lucci but they're kind of blurry, I need you to confirm that it's actually him."

Law handed him his black smartphone and Zoro saw a photo of seven teenage boys and one girl standing next to one another, all dressed in black clothes; and indeed, one of them appeared like Rob Lucci despite how blurry the photo was as it seemed to have caught them in mid action. It was as though they weren't aware of the photo being taken, except for the blonde haired girl who was directly looking at the camera.

"This photo was taken by a photojournalist who was famous for cracking into criminal organizations. This time he was interested in government affairs and got killed in the process. His body was found to have holes all over his torso, which was found soon after this photo was taken."

Zoro placed a finger on Lucci, "That's him, he always wears that top hat. I saw him once when I was a kid, I'm sure that it's him."

Law nodded with a solemn look that seemed to say "I thought so."

"Whitebeard had told us that Lucci appeared out of nowhere about fifteen years ago, at the age of fifteen, on the property of where you were raised until you were ten years old," he referred to the swordsman, who knew instantaneously that he was talking about the shabby old orphanage where children were brought up by nuns and trained by assassins to hone a skill, a method of killing.

"As a teenager without a single memory of his parents or even an idea of who he was, he was taken in by the leader himself, who happened to be there that day. We still don't know who he is, but Whitebeard suspects that he has roots in Europe. Whitebeard is familiar with leaders from South America and Asia, no matter how secretive they are about their identity, but this guy's trading routes trace all the way to Russia and Britain. So the next safe assumption is to say that he's from there."

The swordsman was surprised by the amount of detail gathered by the man in such a short amount of time. He had no idea that Lucci had been taken in like a son by the leader of his organization. It was a fact that was unbeknownst to him and others.

"I couldn't get past the multiple layers of firewalls and security codes the government had up, since they have better hackers than me, but I came across this picture of the CP9 fifteen years ago. This photo was hard to get ahold of, as though someone was trying to bury it on purpose, but luckily it's on some conspiracy pages on reddit. People online like to theorize about the CP9 and the purpose of their existence."

Zoro had no idea what the fuck reddit was but he recognized the name "CP9," as it had been mentioned by Law and Sanji previously.

"That's the group Robin was running away from," Zoro asked without a question mark, his intonation staying consistent throughout his sentence.

Sanji nodded while Law appeared confused. "What business does the CP9 have with Robin-ya?"

"Similar to the reason why the Donquixote family is after you," Sanji explained, though the swordsman didn't have a clue what that could be.

"She knows something that she shouldn't," he stated matter of factly.

"Exactly."

The swordsman was trying to connect the dots together, with the information that Rob Lucci had suddenly appeared out of nowhere fifteen years ago to be taken in by the leader of his organization but there's also a photo floating around, also taken fifteen years ago, with him as a part of the CP9, a secret group serving the government.

"He's a spy," the green haired man concluded and from the looks of it, Law and Sanji both reached the same conclusion as he did.

"Either he's a spy for the government or he's now loyal to the boss of your organization," Law suggested with a dry tone of voice, insinuating that either of the two possibilities wouldn't help them in the long run.

When Zoro stares at the photo one more time, a bit more closely at the faces standing next to Lucci. Most of their faces are hidden away underneath their black baseball caps, except for the blonde girl looking directly at the camera and a blonde boy standing next to Lucci, his nose sticking out like a sore thumb despite the shadow cascaded over his features.

At a first glance, Zoro didn't realize who he was as he was much younger, presumably around twelve years old at the time this picture was taken, and he was looking away from the camera so only seventy percent of his face was shown, but it was unmistakable that it was Kaku in the photo.

"Holy shit," he muttered.

Sanji stared at him, slowly raising his curly brow, and asked, "What happened, mosshead?"

"Remember the guy we saw last night? The one we had to hide from," he began to explain. "He used to be my partner in assassination. His name is Kaku. This is him right here, standing next to Lucci." His finger was squeezed onto the flat of Law's smartphone, which accidentally zoomed out of the photo and displayed his album, with a vast number of photos stretched out across the screen.

For a few seconds before Law grabbed his phone in a hurry, fraught with panic, Zoro glimpsed a few photos of Law with the group and some occasional selfies with either Luffy or Sanji.

Seeing Law's sudden panic mode caused Zoro to frown, wondering what he could possibly be hiding in his phone that caused him to act that way.

"Oh... " Law snapped his attention to the two men who were looking at him curiously. "I have important shit in here…"

His naturally sunken eyes had widened into a state of alert as he held his phone in a tight grip, but soon after he released a soft sigh as though admitting defeat.

"I have a few photos of me...and Luffy…" he confessed to them in a low voice, averting his gaze from their widening eyes and very noticeable gaping mouths, obviously not trying too hard to hide their blatant surprise.

"What," Sanji said without a question mark, clearly unable to process what the raven haired man was saying.

"And some of  _us_  from back then, but they aren't so bad," Law added, referring to Sanji and him, which made the swordsman frown in response.

_What? Of them? What the hell does that supposed to mean?_

He thought the only person Sanji had ever been involved with was Nami, and that it had only been a one-sided crush. Zoro had never considered that the blond was so good at leading their kisses because he's had tons of sexual partners before him.

Sanji glanced at him, with a tint of guilt in his eyes.

A streak of irritation coursed through the swordsman and he glared at the blond, whose attention had already turned away from him.

"I know," the raven haired man acknowledged the daggers flying from the blond's blue eyes, understanding that his anger was well justified and reasonable. "I was just being honest."

Despite the frustration he was feeling, Zoro managed to keep his tone of voice calm and casual.

"So you guys used to date?" he asked dryly.

Sanji shook his head and responded before Law could. "No we didn't, Zoro. I would've told you if we did," he said earnestly. "We were just—"

"—fuck buddies," Law finished for him, and there was a little smirk on his face that Zoro wanted to punch out of him. "But don't worry, Roronoa, the cook-ya rejected me a long time ago and told me that it'll never happen. We're just friends with no fucks in between, not even on special occasions."

"You threw a grenade between us and now you're making jokes?" the cook shrieked, the redness sprouting from his head permeating throughout his entire body. "You fucker," he growled.

Law put his tattooed hands up in the air, a sign of surrender, as a way to reassure the blond that he had nothing up his sleeve and he was willing to be taken in as a prisoner, which only made Zoro grit his teeth thinking about the two of them roleplaying.

"I'll fix this, could you make some tea for us, Sanji-ya? And then I'll explain what's been going on between me and Luffy."

Sanji nodded and walked a few feet away from them to turn the stove on, pour water into the kettle and place it on top of the stove, and stir some tea leaves into the pot with a long tea spoon.

"Roronoa, whatever is happening between you and cook-ya, I promise you that I will not come in between you two," Law reassured, his deep brown eyes staring at him.

Zoro felt confused and frustrated, but he could not pinpoint why Sanji's past relationship with Law was bothering him so much. The past had never bothered him, except for Kuina's death, but even that memory he was able to store into a box and put away in order to devote himself to the possibilities of the now. He had realized a few years ago, if not a few months ago, that there was no point in living in the past as it was just a memory, hollow and nonexistent, as faint in existence as a dream or a story trapped inside his head.

 _It doesn't matter_ , he told himself.

Despite what he told himself, he found himself asking another question: "Why do you still have photos of you and Sanji then?"

 _That's fair_ , he thought, validating his impulses. It's inconsistent logic. Why does he have photos of them when he supposedly moved on?

"I kept them because I haven't had the chance to look through them. I have over twenty thousand photos, so it's more of a hassle to delete them, but I could delete them for you if you'd like," he eased the tension by suggesting a solution to this entire mess.

Zoro shook his head. "That's not necessary."

"I don't look at those photos anymore, if that makes you feel better," he joked, and the swordsman didn't feel anymore reassured than before.

The space around them had filled with the scent of what seemed like citrus and ginger, which Sanji brought over to them shortly after.

"I made some lemon tea because I thought your voice sounded off," Sanji interrupted the two men, putting down three mugs in front of them.

Law chuckled, breaking the stoic facade he was showing Zoro. "This is why he's so easy to fall for," he nudged the swordsman. "And he doesn't even know it."

Zoro silently agreed with him.

Sanji turned beet red in embarrassment and barked, "Shut up," in response.

"Sanji-ya, my voice is hoarse because of the joint I smoked earlier," he told the blond, confirming Zoro's suspicions. "But I appreciate your consideration and I'll gladly drink the tea."

"Whatever," Sanji shrugged off, blowing the steam arising from the top of his murky yellow tea.

"Anyways, tell me about you and Luffy. Are you guys serious?" A sudden glint in his eyes, a way for him to turn the tables away from himself and toward Law instead.

"Curious, aren't you," Law teased the blond, and as though remembering Zoro's presence and his killer aura, he shifted the mood to a more serious one once more with a clear of his throat.

"After I was rejected by you, Sanji-ya, I was in a terrible state. I really did fall in love with you for a few months, you know."

"I know," Sanji confirmed, sounding a bit sympathetic.

Law took a few sips from his tea, with his hands wrapped around the Ray Dunn mug that had a drawing of a cat. "The only person who was really there for me was Luffy. I can't say he picked up my shit, but he reminded me to take care of myself. At first it was just something small, like watching a movie together or inviting me out to eat, little fun things that got my mind off of you. Then eventually, he'd stay over and we would cuddle, but I didn't think much of it at the time because it's Luffy. He's just like that, you know?"

Sanji nodded, and even Zoro understood. If Luffy were to cuddle with him, he also wouldn't think much of it.

"I didn't think he had any feelings for me. To be honest, I didn't even know Luffy was capable of anything romantic, let alone sexual! I was completely thrown off when he told me about how he felt. I didn't know how to react. He gave me a few weeks to think about it. He's understanding in that regard, he always knows what people are feeling and thinking."

"Yeah, and he always seems to know what the right thing to do is," Sanji reminded.

"For those few weeks, I found myself brooding over Luffy, about how I have to let him down easily. The way he confessed to me was so genuine and bold, just like everything he does in life, that I found myself thinking about him constantly. That's when I realized that I was no longer hung up on you, Sanji-ya, and that my heart has already moved on. I was just preventing myself from seeking for happiness that Luffy was clearly trying to show me by hanging onto the past possibilities of you and me."

"We would've never worked out," Sanji affirmed, and Zoro knew that he was talking to him.

"I know that now," Law agrees. "Anyways, we just haven't told anybody yet since we're taking it really slow. We haven't even had sex yet."

"What? You?" Sanji cried out in a burst of surprise. His response was enough to make the swordsman believe that Law was some sort of a sexual imp, with a libido as high as the sky itself.

"You don't have to sound  _that_  surprised," Law huffed in a feigned air of passive annoyance. "Luffy is just… innocent, that's all. I don't want to rush him in any way."

"Oh, my god," Sanji breathed out, after almost doing a spit take with his hot tea. "You're  _so_  in love with him."

The raven haired man's skin was as dark as Zoro's, but despite the naturally darker hue his setting blush was even stronger, emitting an evident glow.

"I don't want to say love yet, but it's getting there," Law confessed, flustered with the heat of their attention all focused on him.

He shrugged off the attention and reminded them the original intent behind their gathering. "Anyways, we should go back to talking about Roronoa's situation."

Sanji took the bait with widened eyes. "Oh, yeah. We should go back to talking about this mosshead. Where did we leave off? We were talking about Lucci and his past, and then marimo saw Kaku in the photo," he summarized and turned his attention toward Zoro. "So, mosshead, tell us everything about this Kaku guy."

The sudden shift of the conversation was rather incredible and it almost took the swordsman a few minutes to process how they made an entire loop in their conversation, finding himself at the beginning where it all began. He felt no longer irritated by the past shared between Sanji and Law, knowing that Law had already moved on and found another love, while Sanji left his heart empty with the possibility of finding someone else, like Zoro. That alone made his heart warm up and feel those unwelcomed rumbles in his abdomen once more.

"Kaku," he repeated dully, trying to remember his old partner who seemed to be the key to this entire situation but couldn't squeeze an ounce of concern to think about the long nosed man.

"I met him three years ago. He's fairly new to the organization since he's part of the division of hired freelancers," the swordsman began to explain.

"Freelancers?" Law asked.

"Yeah, assassinating freelancers," he answered casually. "They usually seek for our organization, which is apparently found in the dark web, and send a resume in."

"That's fucking wild," the raven haired man remarked.

"Kaku partnered up with me, meaning that he was just as skilled and capable, holding the same rank, which is rare in freelance assassins because they're usually just cold hearted serial killers who enjoy the act of killing. They think they're cut out for the field, but in reality, at the slightest threat of their own mediocre lives, they run away," he stated, remembering how the trained assassins ganged up on freelancers knowing that they couldn't defend themselves in the slightest.

"Kaku was put through the 'initiation' and the men surrounded him on his first day," he recalled the division who were raised to be assassins since they were children gathering around Kaku, who faced them with the most unamused and aloof expression.

Part of the reason why they felt the need to bully freelancers was probably out of envy, because at least they had to  _choice_ to be assassins.

"He came out unscatched and barely left them alive, but he could've killed them if he wanted to."

With the new information thrown into the webs of knowledge already existing inside of Law's head, he seemed to contemplate the entirety of this situation in order to form a new conclusion.

"Why did Kaku join the organization if Lucci is already there? And they're both part of the CP9 investigating your organization," he thought out loud, and Zoro couldn't find a satisfying answer to answer his questions.

Sanji shook his head, interrupting his train of thought, and declared, "That's not the problem. What we should be focusing on is how to find Kaku. He's clearly easier to find than Lucci. We saw him just the other day. Maybe he knows the identity of the boss too."

"You're right," Law told him, putting his mug down to rest on the counter. The steam was no longer rising from the tea. "I should get going. I'll find out where he is by tonight," he reassured the two men.

"You sure?" the blond raised a brow, doubting his words. "We have a bit more time. You don't have to pull an all nighter to find this out."

"Don't worry. I napped with Luffy earlier," the raven haired man told him with a grin.

 _So that's why he was in such a good mood,_  Zoro thought.

"I'll see you guys soon. Thanks for the food and the tea, Sanji-ya. I'll bring Luffy next time."

"Please don't," Sanji groaned, knowing that he would have no break in the kitchen if the straw hat boy came to his house hungry.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"It's ironic that your organization is considered illegal while the government is doing the exact same thing. Training children to become CP9 agents isn't so different from them becoming assassins," Sanji remarked, as he was wiping down the counter with a paper towel.

"I can see why you've grown hateful toward them who aren't so different from your organization."

The swordsman nodded. It was true that hypocrisy existed in every crevice of good and evil, but he could see now that being hateful toward it didn't have any meaning or purpose.

Straying from the topic of his situation, which was starting to give him a headache anyways, he asked the blond, "So… you and Law, huh?"

It was a big ass elephant in the room that they had to talk about, and Zoro just happened to be the one asking about it first. Perhaps Sanji was right, they  _had_  to talk about what was going on between them. It was all too confusing. The things he felt, the things Sanji does to him, and everything surrounding it; he suddenly felt like he was inside of a well and the water was starting to rise. He was on his toes, trying to find a way not to drown.

There was a shot of a lethal glare shooting arrows at Zoro before an emotional bubble had burst out into the open.

"Marimo, why does it fucking matter?" he huffed out defensively, stopping momentarily from cleaning up the kitchen. "I didn't tell you about Law, okay? We've only known each other for like five days, and you were asleep for the most part. I don't owe you shit."

The swordsman frowned, his head starting to swirl with the emanating emotions of Sanji's and his own, as well as confusion about why the hell the blond was suddenly mad at him.

The rational part of Zoro's brain told him that he should just ask Sanji what his problem is; then perhaps they would most likely come to a healthy, understanding conclusion, but that just wasn't who he was. Sanji was the most fucking irrational, hotheaded, irritating individual he had ever met. His mood swung wildly left and right like a broken pendulum of a grandfather clock and he took it out on  _him_ , and only Zoro. The plot twist was that the green haired man wasn't any better, and he too was just as emotional and hotheaded. He wasn't about to take Sanji's shit up his ass like a fucking saint.

 _Fuck that_ , a voice said in his head.

The swordsman's body acted before he spoke, as it always did. He clutched the neck of Sanji's shirt and slammed him to the ground; and as the cook's back roughly hit the floor, he let out a heavy grunt and a loud "Agh!"

"Shit… head…" Sanji managed to choke out. His face was red from the sudden impact. The flow of the blood rushing to his head, probably from all the anger and the way his head was tilted back.

A low guttural noise came from the back of Zoro's throat, an animalistic growl, and he squatted down to look at Sanji on an eye to eye level.

"You owe me an explanation," he threateningly demanded, the way he would to a client who refuses to pay.

The typical response of someone who'd receiving the wrong end of the stick from Zoro would either shit his pants or do exactly what he tells them to do, but Sanji was different. As expected, the blond responded with legs against his fists, swinging those iron bars in the most unbelievably flexible motion, whacking the side of Zoro's head and knocking him to the ground next to where he himself was lying down.

"Oof _."_

"Think you can threaten me, you shitty marimo? Your  _weak_  ass attempts at putting me in my place will only get my foot in your mouth." He jumped up to his feet in a smooth motion by jerking his body upward.

"Mother _fucker_ ," he growled, weaker this time. The side of his head throbbing from the sudden impact, feeling like his skull had shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Fuck  _out_ of here with your threats. Who the hell do you think I am," he hissed angrily, like a violated cat with his tail puffed up and standing erect in the air.

Remembering how Enel went for the low blow by tripping Luffy by his feet, the swordsman kicked Sanji in the shin with the heel of his foot. " _Fuck!_ " Sanji cried out in pain, and with barely enough time Zoro dodged by turning sideways from the cook's lethal attacks, avoiding a kick that would have broken his nose.

Sanji then swung his leg in a sweeping motion so Zoro would not be able to dodge and Zoro felt the hard impact of his toes slamming into his ribcage.

"Agh!"  _That's going to leave a bruise._

Feeling the adrenaline pumping in his bloodstream, Zoro found himself neither angry nor scared but felt waves of exhilaration sweep him over and over. The last time he had this much fun was with Kuina.

As the heel of Sanji's right foot swung down like a guillotine, Zoro managed to pull himself high enough to catch his leg with his arms. The impact was so brutal, Zoro felt the vibrations and the ripples of his muscles break the thread of his stitch one by one.

 _Shit, I have to be careful_.

Anybody else would've had their bones shattered at the impact or perhaps lost their arms as a consequence for the reckless attempt of stopping Sanji's wrath, but Zoro managed to scrape by with only reddened palms, a few bruises, and aching muscles. He grabbed the blond by his arms after catching them and yanked him, pulling him to fall on top of himself.

"What the—" he stuttered as he tumbled from his precarious position, and fell on his butt once more.

He barely had a chance to register the swordsman climbing on top of him, but once he realized that Zoro was attempting to put a submission hold on him he began to thrash and growl like a rabid dog. Though it was definitely easier said than done, this time the swordsman managed to pin down his legs first with his hands and straddled himself on top of his hips. Zoro didn't give a shit about Sanji's arms, which were barely stronger than an average man's strength.

"Get the fuck off of me!" the cook yelled, pounding the swordsman's back with his fists but it only felt like a massage to Zoro.

Zoro was grinning as Sanji was spitting fire and blood, spewing the most vile curses he could think of and threatening to shove it somewhere inside of Zoro's body. As he was pinning down the book's thrashing legs he thought of a priest exorcising a demon out of someone's body.

"You fucker, I'll kill you!"

The green haired man was snorting with laughter, finding this shit so hilarious and amusing, with Sanji flailing like a fish out of the water beneath him and cursing him with names he had never even heard of. He kept his grip tight on the cook until, eventually, with what seemed like an arduous amount of time and energy, Sanji remained limp and still beneath him.

With his face facing the ground, Zoro couldn't see what expression he was making.

"Oi, perverted cook, you still there?" he asked without loosening his grip. "Are you done with your bitch fit?"

Despite the provocation, there was no answer. Just him breathing, his body rising and falling ever so delicately.

"Oi," he called out again, louder this time, but Sanji remained unmoving.

Zoro waited a few more minutes before deciding to loosen his hold, letting Sanji's legs fall limply like the rest of his body, waiting a little more before deciding to get off of him. He wondered what the cook was up to.

It was still a funny sight to see Sanji sprawled on the ground.  _Talk about dignified_ , he thought with a snort.

Like a wild cat, as soon as the swordsman had his guard down and was resting next to Sanji's body, the cook pounced on him with his metaphorical claws extended and ready to pierce his skin. "Gotcha, marimo head!" he shouted, suddenly alive and energetic, with a playful expression. As a response, Zoro fell back with the weight of Sanji tipping him over, and he found himself in the same position as Sanji was in just a moment ago.

Except this time, Sanji was on top of him and loftily smirking, as though he had just won the lottery or the ticket to go to Hogwarts.

Zoro felt his arms go weak and numb, as the blond's knees were pressed firmly against them. He knew that Sanji was effectively putting a submission hold on him to get even, and he cursed him silently for his vengeful and competitive spirit; but his biggest concern was the fact that their crotches were kissing, pressed up against one another with a considerable amount of friction and he had to hold in a small moan that was at the tip of his tongue. He noticed the hefty weight of Sanji's package against his own, and the heat emanating from that same meeting point. He didn't know whether the heat was from himself or Sanji.

The blond didn't seem to notice or be concerned, as he was caught in the high of his win.

"Teach you to fuck with me, mosshead," he said arrogantly, like the pompous ass he is. "Demanding shit from me, who do you think you are?"

He crouched forward, low enough for his hair to tickle Zoro's cheeks and for Zoro's attention to shift away from their crotches to Sanji's face.

His piercing blue eyes were so close that he felt as though he was in a trance, lost in the blue sea sailing on a ship, with nothing but the sky above him. With Sanji so close to him, he recalled last night when he had the blond's lips against his own and their tongues stuck in a melodic dance. He suddenly wondered why Sanji had kissed him and why he had kissed Sanji.

What am I doing? he silently asked himself.

Wasn't he supposed to be back in the organization, assassinating politicians and businessmen who overstepped their bounds and got themselves tangled in the underworld? Wasn't he just a mere tool in the shed, ready to be disposed at hand by some unknown boss of his organization? Why was he here with this beautiful and feisty blond, getting emotionally and physically involved?

Where to go from here...

Sanji's hot breath trailed itself closer and closer to his lips, and his scent overwhelmed Zoro's senses once more, causing every worry and thought to dissipate into thin air as though they never existed in the first place. It was like Sanji himself was haughtily intruding into the deep crevices of his mind to ridicule those thoughts, laughing at them, and saying, "Marimo, why are you worrying so much?"

This shitty, hotheaded, overtly emotional blond was like a fucking beacon of hope for him and he saw his future clearer than ever before.

He tasted the familiar flavor of smoke on his tongue, as Sanji traced his lips expertly with the right amount of tongue and teeth, slowly guiding Zoro how it can be done. Faintly, in the back of his head, he remembered Law and how he had probably taught Sanji the way he was doing with him, but he quickly pushed that thought away.

There's no point in fretting about the past, he thought.

The hold on Zoro's arms loosened as Sanji got caught up in the kiss, and he used this to his advantage by gripping the sides of his Sanji's and grinding their groins together, like the way he imagined earlier. The sudden jolt from the friction caused Sanji to stifle a moan and pull away from the kiss. Pleased by the results, the swordsman repeatedly grinded Sanji's body against his now enlarged and hard erection trapped under the fabric of his pants.

The blond's attempt to stifle his moan was short lived and soon he was making sounds like an experienced porn star, and Zoro too couldn't help but to give a low growl in the back of his throat.

" _Fuck,_  Sanji, why do you do this to me," he groaned, half genuinely curious and the other half wanting to grab his attention for those gorgeous blue eyes to rest on him.

The blond chuckled, a little out of breath, a little out of practice it seemed. "Do what, marimo?"

He leaned forward with his lean fingers tucking the little strands of hair behind the back of his ear, which were bright red in embarrassment. Zoro knew that Sanji just wanted to kiss, but a part of him didn't want to easily give him what he wanted. So instead he wasted no time in grinding roughly against Sanji, lifting his hips this time to show more enthusiasm and thrusting their erections together repeatedly, eliciting louder cries and moans from them both.

Sanji joined the rhythm of his dance by sliding his body upward, rubbing and humping him to the point that his erection felt like it could burst any second, throbbing almost painfully against Sanji's muscular inner thigh.

He licked his lips at the sight of the blond erotically throwing his head back, panting in pure pleasure, the hard bulge of his jeans pressed tightly against his navel.

"Sanji, you drive me fucking insane _,_ " he admitted with a hiss of approval, feeling Sanji's cock adjusted against his own to rub and rotate unmercifully. He wanted more than anything for those restrictive layers to come off and for their erections to kiss and grind, feel each other up, the way they were doing to each other. He  _wanted_  to see Sanji's exposed skin, raging hard boner standing proudly in the air, with semen leaking from his pink tip, which he imagined would be the same color as his lips.

Suddenly, as though Sanji had read his mind, Zoro felt his fingers pulling at the rim of his pants to impatiently pull it down, helping him to get rid of this restrictive material. He eagerly wrapped his calloused hands around Zoro's shaft, which was a glorious seven inches of tanned skin wrapped around with a thin layer of precum. It shivered in delight as Sanji began to expertly stroke it up and down, putting the right amount of pressure and with a speed that left Zoro wanting more while simultaneously feeling as though it was more than enough.

The cook shimmied away from him without stopping those strokes that drove the swordsman mad, inching his body lower until his lips met the tip of his throbbing cock that seemed to weep in joy with semen.

" _Urghh_ ," Zoro moaned unwillingly, which was pulled out of him so effortlessly.

The blond's pink lips wrapped around the head of his erection and Zoro almost came then and there, with the visual image of the cook's flushed face staring up at him and his mouth around his manhood. It was the hottest, most arousing thing he'd ever seen in his entire life.

"You're so fucking hot, Sanji, fuckkk," he groaned, restraining himself from coming so quickly as he wanted Sanji's lips around him a little longer.

Sanji expertly took him in, all at once, and the swordsman cried out as pleasure coursed through him like ripples on the surface of a river. Zoro's hand instinctively reached out to grab his head, with the strands of his blond hair weaved between the spaces of his fingers, and the other balancing him as he lifted his hips to hit the back of Sanji's throat over and over.

The blond knocked off his hand from his head and pulled back, to stare into Zoro's eyes and see the visible greed with which he was watching him with, and grinned.

"Not so fast, marimo," he teased, reminding him that he was the one in control.

Zoro stared at him lustfully, his cock throbbing in need wanting Sanji's mouth around him once more. He took his own hand to stroke himself slowly, feeling the blond's intense eyes resting on him, hungrily and greedily taking everything in. If it meant throwing away all of his ego and pride for Sanji to suck his dick, Zoro would do it in a heartbeat,

"Please, Sanji," he croaked, a small blush forming on his cheeks. "I want you to suck me off…"

And before he knew it, his hands were knocked off again as Sanji seized him with his mouth and deepthroated him expertly, causing Zoro to throw his head back in pure ecstasy. This time the blond was massaging his sacks with his fingers, tracing his tongue alongside the veins of his erection while bobbing his head up and down. A combination the swordsman didn't believe was possible until now.

He couldn't hold it much longer, with the sight of the blond glimpsing up at him with those mesmerizing, sexy blue eyes of his and his soft lips wrapped around his throbbing, raging hard erection. The feeling of his cock hitting the back of Sanji's throat felt truly divine and he felt the pressure building up with each stroke of his tongue and squeeze of his fingers, feeling the whiteness of his orgasm reaching and climbing, overtaking his senses, swallowing him completely whole. And in an instance, with his arms splayed over Sanji's head, toes curled, and waves of pleasure pulsating to the tips of his body he felt himself cumming inside of the blond's wet cavern of his mouth, moaning and cursing Sanji's name loud enough to reach heaven's ears.

"Fuckkk," was all that came out that was remotely coherent, feeling the familiar sensation of his brain freezing and the world dissolving around him, everything connected to the earthly body being released as pleasure ceased his breath.

He didn't realize the cook lapping up every drop of his hot, white semen dribbling down his softening erection until he crashed down to earth to the familiar body in front of him, noticing that Sanji was still sporting an erection himself.

The blond pulled back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, visibly swallowing the last bit of Zoro's semen as his adam's apple bobbled up and down.

He was blushing, staring into the swordsman's eyes. Zoro's chest squeezed tightly, wanting to bring Sanji close against him.

Zoro wondered if he should return the favor by getting on his knees and give him a blowjob, but Sanji seemed to have a different idea as he lazily leaned back, his knees bent, and hips thrusted forward. He slowly brought down the zipper of his pants and let his red, weeping erection pop out of his pants, and Zoro was able to confirm that the head was indeed the same color as his lips.

He was a truly beautiful sight, with his hardened cock standing proudly in the air.

"Watch me…" Sanji demanded before wrapping his own hands around his erection, giving a few slow experimental strokes before masturbating in front of Zoro.

If there was a porn star similar to Sanji, he could imagine himself masturbating in front of the screen all day. This kinky, horny bastard was enjoying every last bit of lustful attention given by the swordsman, and he threw off his pants completely to give Zoro a better view. He sped up his hands, rocked his hips to match the pace of his strokes, and widened his legs to spread himself further, making himself far more sexually appetizing for the man in front of him.

The swordsman felt himself growing hard again watching Sanji slip into a look of arousal and pleasure.

"Zoro..." he breathed harshly. "Get the lube in my bedroom, right next to my bed."

Understanding what he was insinuating, the swordsman reached forward to grab Sanji's legs, who in surprise ceased the movement of his hand.

"What are you doing?" he yelped as Zoro dragged his bare ass across the floor to wrap his legs around his waist, feeling the hard muscles and his hot skin against his own naked flesh.

He calmly responded, "Taking you to the bedroom, it's uncomfortable on the floor for you."

Once Sanji's legs were wrapped around his waist, he firmly squeezed those muscular cheeks just to feel them up before standing up, his hardening erection in the cleft of Sanji's ass and Sanji's erection against his naval. The blond wrapped his arms around Zoro's neck, resting his warm cheek on his shoulder, as the green haired man took them both to his bedroom where a comfortable, undisturbed bed awaited them.

Zoro softly laid Sanji on the bed as though Sanji would break otherwise, though he knew thoroughly to the core how tough the man was. He grabbed the lube which was on top of the nightstand as Sanji had told him, and coated himself lavishly.

The blond was eagerly stroking himself once more, with his legs spread widely to welcome Zoro to penetrate him. "Zoro,  _hah_ , do you have any idea how badly I want you. How much I wanted to fuck you, how much I wanted  _you_  to fuck me?"

Zoro leaned forward to stare at Sanji face to face, and kissed him briefly, fleetingly, leaving him wanting more.

"Tell me how badly you want it, Sanji," he demanded, with the same voice he'd used earlier when he demanded an explanation from Sanji. The blond shuddered from the low growl and the threatening tone, the urgency in his voice that was as deadly as his nature as an assassin.

"Fuck me, you shitty marimo, fuck me like you mean it!"

An electric heat sears through his veins and travels straight down to his groin. Zoro had to fulfill the demands of this hot, half naked cook lying in front of him with his legs spread wide open and his erection in his erratically moving hand. With a smirk, Zoro reached down with a prodding finger, pleased to find the blond moaning as a response and pressed two more inside when he felt Sanji had adjusted. It was hot inside of the cook, and so very tight. He swallowed in anticipation for his cock to be swallowed in this heat.

Sanji tightly grips the blankets and slightly opens his mouth to reveal his pleasure when Zoro curls his fingers inside of him, rubbing the sweet spot deep inside of him.

"You like that, cook?" he teased, extremely turned on by Sanji's reactions.

"Jesus fuck," was his breathy response, which he assumed was a 'yes' in his language.

He pulled his fingers out from Sanji's entrance and brought his hips closer to himself, pressing the head of his erection against him.

"You ready?" he asked, using every bit of restraint in his body to not shove his dick inside of him and start greedily pounding into him

"Move already, mosshead!" Sanji yelled eagerly, a cue for Zoro to slip into him like a fine glass of wine, or for him, cheap whiskey was more suited for his taste, but Sanji was definitely too prissy to settle to be anything less than wine.

He pushed his hips forward and pressed into Sanji, and felt tight heat surrounding him instantaneously. His erection disappeared inch by inch ever so slowly; and watched, too, the walls of muscle stretching and loosening. "Fuck," Sanji groaned in pain as his tight muscles were adjusting around Zoro's cock more comfortably, eyes squeezed shut and hands gripping the blankets.

"It's been awhile,' he admits with a small forced chuckle.

Zoro asks him, "How does it feel, Sanji?" His voice was a controlled gentle, which was the exact opposite of what he felt on the inside; the carnal desire to just pull back and plough back inside deep and raw was strong, to simply  _use_  Sanji and fulfill his own desires. The feeling of simply being inside of him, the tight and wet heat surrounding him, sucking him in like a dirty prostitute despite the innocent charade the blond was putting forward. But he was curious, as he himself never had anything up his ass nor did he hear any personal stories from gay men who actually enjoying having a penis inside of them.

"Right now it just feels like I'm giving a backward birth," Sanji jokes, but upon seeing the serious concern and contemplation on whether to pull out from Zoro he quickly adds, "But it starts feeling really good once you start moving."

The green haired man nodded before experimentally drawing his hips back and plunging in half-way, eliciting a reaction that was instantaneous.

 _"Fuckkk, Zoro!_ " cried out the blond, whose spine has curved and hips were raised, a position Zoro gladly accepted as one in his favor as he took ahold of his hips in his tight grip. He decided to waste no time to pull back and plough in once more, but deeper and rougher this time, feeling himself being swallowed by the heat of Sanji's body.

" _Ahhhh-fuck_ - _Jesus-fuck me_." The blond was louder with his moans this time, shouting Zoro's name and cursing up a storm, feeling a violent shudder vibrating throughout his body.

The green haired man grinned, feeling his competitive spirit firing him up, "Aren't you asking for too much, perverted cook?"

"Shut up and fuck me, you green headed bastard!" he demanded with a forced frown.

He was glad to fulfill Sanji's request. The chains of any restraint were thrown out and he allowed his instincts to take over.

Zoro ploughed into the cook relentlessly, pulling Sanji's strong and muscular hips to meet the rhythm of his thrusts, earning himself cries of pleasure each time. He was probably gripping his hips hard enough to leave several bruises, but he knew the man in front of him could take it. His hard cock was throbbing inside of Sanji's ass which had a temperature similar to that of a volcano, and as his erection was sliding in and out of him Sanji grabbed a hold of his own weeping dick, masturbating furiously to find some sort of an enlightening release.

"Holy shit, Sanji, you're burning," the swordsman groaned, his cock feeling suffocated by the walls of muscles and flesh surrounding him, feeling himself ready to explode and spill gallons of cum inside of Sanji.

"Zoro-Zoro- _Fuck!"_ Sanji was nearly screaming, one hand gripping the bedsheet and the other furiously beating his meat.

Zoro firmly grounded his foot on the ground to increase his speed and dive deeper, fucking him as roughly and as ferociously as he was masturbating.

" _Fuckk, Sanji, fuck,_ " he panted, losing himself to the sensations of fucking Sanji and the sound of his moans echoing the bedroom, feeling the intense whiteness of orgasm spreading like an inkblot unfurling across a sheet of paper.

Sanji came a split second before he did, tensing up all around his hard cock and lurching forward. " _Zoro-Zoro-,"_ he moaned loudly as his semen spurted out of his dick, spilling across his muscular abdomen and chiseled chest.

At the sight of the blond being covered in semen and the feeling of tightness intensifying around his cock, his own climax overtakes him rapidly and he gives a final thrust before releasing his load into Sanji. The whiteness completely consuming him and all of his thoughts released into the air like a flying balloon reaching for the sky. The world dissolved for a few seconds in front of him, then crashed down just as fast to fall down on the body beneath him.

"Holy shit," Sanji said a few minutes later, breaking the peaceful silence between them as they laid on the bed side by side. "How did  _that_ happen?"

Zoro was still recovering from the intense orgasm that left him feeling utterly exhausted and sleepy.

"Talk later, sleep now," he suggested with a heavy yawn, nudging against Sanji's body and wrapping his arms around his waist. His head using the blond's thin but still firm and muscular arm as a pillow and his now limp dick innocently pressed up against Sanji's hairy leg.

"Mm," the blond amiably agrees to his terms with a hum, relaxing his body against Zoro's warmth and softly snoring a few minutes in.

And for the first time, as there had been so many first times with Sanji, Zoro was able to fall asleep peacefully and have dreams, though he couldn't remember what any of them was about. Just flashes of images of blue eyes, blond hair, and curly brows that seemed to resemble a labyrinth, lost in a maze with an unknown destination ahead of him.

* * *

 **AN:** Well... I hope you liked it ;) 

 


	10. The Beginning to an End

The two men entangled with one another in their slumber were slowly aroused to awake as the buzz of Sanji's phone rang next to them, on top of the night stand. Zoro did not want to wake up so he tried hard to ignore the sound until it went away, but the cook reached out to grab his phone, disentangling himself from Zoro's hold.

"Hello?" he groused sleepily, with a hoarse voice that seemed to have dropped an octave. "Law?"

The swordsman's attention snapped up to the conversation and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep again.

"Yeah, I just woke up. Did you do an all nighter last night?"

Zoro opened his eyes to see Sanji rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand. His hair was all over the place again and his curly eyebrows were golden brown while basking in the sunlight beaming through the window.

"You found out where Kaku is? How?" he suddenly seemed alert, and his eyes met Zoro's in a way to confirm what he just said. "Yeah, Zoro's awake now. He's right next to me," he confirmed and pursed his lips.

A few seconds of silence and Zoro watched as the blond's ivory complexion turn pink, reminding him of when Sanji was screaming his name with that same color on his face.

_Good images_ , he mused with a satisfied smirk.

"Shut up, you fucking junkie," Sanji defensively retorted to whatever Law said on the other line.

He pulled away from the thin sheets covering his lower half and Zoro's arms that were wrapped around his waist, and he stood naked by the window. It was a mesmerizing sight, beautiful in an ethereal sense of the word, like he didn't really belong in this world like the rest of them.

Zoro stayed in bed, simply watching the cook's movements. Sanji strolled over to grab his pants from the night before and pulled out a stick of cigarette from his pockets, before cracking the window open to smoke out in the open.

"In how long?" he asked on the phone, followed by a few seconds of silence. "Okay we'll be there."

He took a long inhale from his stick and coughed it out. His throat probably wasn't used to the smoke after resting for nine hours. He placed his phone on the nightstand and glanced at Zoro, who was still resting on the bed with blankets covering his lower half. Very obviously checking him out. The ripples of his muscles stretched out across his skin, the hard abdomen layered on top of one another, his strong and powerful arms, and trailing below his waist where two lines were leading his eyes to…

Sanji ripped his eyes away from him and turned away with an obvious blush on his cheeks. He hung up the call and threw the phone toward Zoro, who caught it midair and placed it on the nightstand again.

"How's the ass, cook?" Zoro asked with a small smirk. It was cute that Sanji was blushing like a shy little maiden, as though he didn't curse like a filthy pirate last night while getting hammered. "And what did Law say?"

Sanji rolled his eyes, "Have some decency to at least be like 'how is  _your_  ass, Sanji?' Not just 'how's the ass,' you fucking neanderthal."

The green haired man laughed at the response, feeling awfully giddy like he had just taken a hit.

"My ass is surprisingly okay. I haven't been fucked like that in over six months so I thought it'd have heavier repercussions," he chuckled lightly. "And Law didn't say much other than that he thinks he found Kaku."

Zoro raised a brow, "He _thinks?_ "

The blond man blew out a smoke with puckered lips and placed a hand on his hip, with his flaccid and shriveled up member hanging between his legs. He was definitely shameless in this regard and Zoro wondered whether he attained this trait from someone like Luffy.

"You know how it is. Like any other hidden organizations, things are secretive. It must've taken ages for Law to dig up whatever information he's holding."

Zoro thought about this for a moment.

Even though he still felt defensive on the topic of Law, it was clear to him that he was a monumental force that pushed both Sanji and Zoro over the edge. For that reason, he thanked Law silently in his head.

"So where to? Where are we meeting him?"

"After this cigarette, marimo. Get dressed," Sanji told him, without a sense of urgency in his tone of voice. "You can wear the clothes at the bottom of the drawer. They used to be my father's clothes and you guys are around the same size."

He had wondered why the clothes Sanji had been given actually fit him, seeing that the blond was clearly a smaller build than himself. Now it made sense that he had been wearing his father's clothes. He lazily pulled himself out of bed and allowed the thin veil of blankets to fall away from him, revealing his own nakedness that Sanji was ogling at so blatantly and hungrily.

Zoro has never felt so exposed in the past, feeling like he was on a stage with all the lights pointed directly at him. He felt slightly embarrassed and felt his cheeks warming up from all the attention he was getting from the cook, and Sanji knew fucking well what he was doing to him.

He pulled out a thin black T-shirt and sweatpants; and as Sanji predicted, it fit him quite nicely.

The clothes weren't as luxurious as Sanji's but they were suitable for him as they were meant to be very comfortable. The shirt was tight enough to accentuate his muscles and curves, and the sweatpants were baggy enough to hide the fact that he wasn't wearing any underwear and tight enough to cup his ass nicely.

"Zoro," the cook softly said his name in a tone of voice that broke Zoro's attention from looking at himself in the mirror.

"Did last night mean anything to you?"

Zoro stood there, in the midst of tying the strings of his sweatpants, gawping at the cook in confusion.  _Didn't we have sex? How could that not mean anything?_

He wondered what the cook was really asking him.

Was this about Law? What the sex meant to them? What Sanji meant to him? Was there a difference between their relationship than what he had with Law?

The circuits of his brain connected to turn on the dull light bulb.

"So," Zoro drawled out. "You're asking whether we are just fuck buddies like you and Law were, right?" He felt like he won a gold medal for figuring out the underlying meaning behind Sanji's question.

Sanji was still naked, basking in the sunlight, careful to tap his cigarette ashes outside of his window.

He stared at him with a bold gaze, without flinching from the question thrown back at him. "Something like that, marimo. I just want to make sure we're on the same page."

The green haired man sat on the bed and crossed his leg over the other, taking a front seat view of the naked cook standing in front of him and wondering whether he was stuck in some sort of a dream or a simulation. It was almost blinding how bright Sanji was in front of him that it appeared to be surreal.

"Tell me about you and Law," Zoro demanded, gently this time. "Or any other fuck buddies you've had."

Sanji groaned, "This again? Does it  _really_  matter?"

A low growl vibrated in the swordsman's throat, and he retorted, "Yes, to me it does. I want to know who you've been with, and  _why_  you didn't tell me."

Sanji stared at Zoro with unyielding eyes, clear with honesty, and his body leaning against the window sill with his long legs stretched out in front of him.

"Like I told you, the only person I truly liked was Nami. She was the only person I was able to emotionally connect with  _and_ she was stunning to look at, now more than before but I thought she was the most gorgeous person in the world the first time I laid eyes on her."

The swordsman cringed.

He wasn't much of a romantic like the way Sanji was and a part of him didn't want to stomach how much he'd fallen in love with Nami. It stung, in the same way it did when he'd heard about Sanji and Law, but definitely a little more.

"But, as you already know, she didn't like me back the way I wanted her to and we just stayed as friends. I slept with a handful of girls who had red hair like her but it just didn't feel right. I felt so fucking guilty for using women like that. I know no one deserves to be used, but  _women_ especially. My old man had always taught me to treat a lady right and that's been ingrained into my head."

"So, that's why you started using men?" Zoro asked with a little smirk, lightening up the situation and his aching heart a little bit.

Sanji rolled his eyes. "Way to make me sound like an asshole."

"Can't make you sound like one when you already are one," he teased.

"I don't  _use_  men," he defensively retorted. "It's just easier to have sex with men without any strings attached, or be reminded of Nami in any way shape or form.  _That's_  how Law and I started out, and I thought it'd be easy to keep our feelings at a distance. I never thought he would be the one to get attached so quickly since he's had way more sexual partners than I have and always managed to keep sex and feelings separated."

Zoro vaguely understood the difficulties in distinguishing love and sex, but with the intimacy he and Sanji shared last night he could somewhat grasp how one could 'catch feelings' with sex.

"He told me that he'd never met a man who's so nurturing and giving, which I think he desperately needed after losing his father, Corason, to Doflamingo. He liked me the way I did with Nami, because we just wanted to be understood in a way no one else could, and what better way to do that than finding someone who went through a similar experience?"

Hearing Sanji's explanation left him feeling more confused than before. By reason, it should've been as easy to fall for Law as it was to fall for Nami, so why didn't he?

"Why then?" he asked, succinctly, with little words to explain what he was asking.

Sanji seemed to intuitively know what he was asking for, as his answer perfectly responded to his lack of question. "Because understanding isn't love? I mean it could be, but having the same experiences doesn't mean you can love them. I just saw Law as a friend and, to be honest, he probably just liked the idea of me like the way I liked Nami. We never had a real connection, not in the way…"

He looked up at him with those lack of words again, the silence filling up the air like an expanding balloon.

Zoro realized that this whole time Sanji had been wanting, silently, for him to finish that sentence, because he was afraid that he was the only one feeling this way. Like the way he felt toward Nami or the way Law felt toward Sanji, he wanted to confirm Zoro's feelings as a way to assure that their sex wasn't just a meaningless fling.

So he decided, though it was more difficult than he'd imagined, to finish that sentence for him.

"Like us," he mumbled, so quietly that it could've been mistaken as a distant sound in the air. He nervously scratched his head, feeling an odd tension in his chest that was like multiple pins poking the surface. "Last night felt like a confirmation," he explained, averting Sanji's expression that was stupidly gawping at him.

Sanji tossed the cigarette butt outside of his window before making his way toward Zoro. "Of?" he inquired as his naked body strolled closer to where he sat.

"Of us," he answered, looking up to stare at those marvelous blue eyes hovering over him. "How I feel about you."

The cook leaned forward and tucked the strands of his blond hair behind his reddening ear to kiss Zoro, innocently, without the ravenous appetite, and traced the edges of his lips with his sultry, smokey breath.

"A fateful meeting," Sanji repeated those words again in his mouth. "There was a reason why we met."

"I know," he confirmed. "You told me how you felt when you were drunk out of your mind."

Sanji chuckled, "Shut up, cactus bastard. At that time it was just an instinct.  _Now_  it's more real, like I've known you for a long time. It's so effortless to talk to you, to be myself... and it also feels good to beat the shit out of someone."

Zoro rolled his eyes and huffed, "You mean to be beaten the shit out of, because yesterday was just a fluke and it was advantageous for me that you were on top of me."

The cook gave him a shit eating grin, "Stupid, you're full of shit. You couldn't move an inch. Admit it!"

The swordsman laughed, a rumble of throaty chuckles. "Never!"

He pulled Sanji by the wrist and had his naked body to topple over his, his arms sprawled out above his green head and his legs wrapped around his waist. He felt aroused again from the similar position they were in from last night, or perhaps he just really liked Sanji straddling him, imagining Sanji using his powerful legs to erratically move up and down on his pulsing cock, with closed eyes and a quiet moan of ecstasy while he came on the tanned muscles of Zoro's stomach.

The images in his head were becoming more lucid the more he thought about them.

Sanji kissed him eagerly and aggressively this time, while palming his chest with his hands, similar to a pup digging the ground for treasure. When by chance his palms grazed against Zoro's hardened nipples, he groaned from the sudden jolt of pleasure and his hard-on twitched against Sanji's naked ass.

" _Fuck_ ," he shuddered.

Sanji snickered, "Your virgin body is so sensitive." His fingers squeezed the nipples this time, and Zoro found himself lifting his torso to dry hump the blond in a way to alleviate himself.

Zoro growled, "I'll kill you later, Cook." Despite his empty threat, he couldn't help but feel so helplessly aroused and buzzed from the slightest touches from Sanji, like every pore in his body had been forced to open and he was a hundred times more sensitive than he was naturally.

The blond was laughing hard at the contrast between Zoro's bodily response and the shit that spewed out of his mouth.

_Bzzt...Bzzt...Bzzt_

"Oi, your phone is ringing again," Zoro told him while glancing at the device sitting on the nightstand next to them, vibrating in place and the screen light glowing.

Sanji sighed before sliding off Zoro, taking the weight of his body off the boner trapped beneath the soft fabric of his sweatpants. He picked up the phone and slid his finger across the screen, putting the phone on speaker this time so he could eagerly jump back into Zoro's lap.

Law's voice boomed and echoed the space around them like thunder. "Stop fucking and come to the cafe, you horn dogs, or else I'll personally come there myself to ruin the mood!"

The blond pulled away from Zoro again and groaned, " _Okay_ , okay, we'll be there soon." He pulled out a few pieces of clothing to throw on; a casual-wear of T-shirt and dark blue jeans this time, throwing the pants he grabbed earlier into the laundry basket.

It was strange to see Sanji without his normal sophisticated look of a suit and tie.

"Be here less than five or I'll be there," he threatened, obviously cranky from lack of sleep.

"Okay, I have my clothes on," Sanji assured him. "We'll be leaving now."

"Like they weren't on before?!" he screeched. "Why would you fuck the morning after you fucked all night?"

Sanji and Zoro bursted out laughing as Law was freaking out on them, sounding very close to Chopper when he was frantic over the swordsman's wounds.

"Get some sleep Law, and get Luffy to suck your dick," Zoro responded after his breathing had steadied into its normal rhythm.

The blond scrunched up his face and made a gagging motion, which made the swordsman choke with laughter, but he tried to keep his voice straight by breathing evenly and steadily through his nose until Law casually responded, "He actually did last night before he went to sleep."

The two men were back to rolling with laughter, and Zoro heard a low "I hate you guys" from Law before hanging up the phone.

As Sanji was straightening his puffy hair with a wooden comb, an inscription of Chinese characters etched on the side, he told Zoro, "I honestly can't and don't want to imagine Luffy getting on his knees to suck Law's dick."

Zoro shook his head, shuddering at the possible image floating in his brain, "I think the day I see that will be the day gravity stops working and we find out that the earth is actually flat."

It wasn't the fact that Luffy was with Law that was strange to them but the fact that Luffy was able to be sexual like the rest of them, as that ball of energy was more childlike and seemingly asexual than anybody Zoro'd met in the past. It was also strange to imagine the match: a cranky, dark humored guy like Law and a bright ball of energy like Luffy together, but at the same time Zoro didn't ask anybody to fall for a hot tempered cook like Sanji either.

Love wasn't something that could be calculated.

Zoro's hard-on had cooled off as he was distracted by the conversation with Law and thinking about his relationship with Luffy; he also no longer had a naked blond to ogle at to get his blood stimulated.

As the cook grabbed his keys, phone, and wallet, Zoro called out to him, "Oh, and cook. If I had my swords, you wouldn't have a fighting chance."

Instead of being thrown off by such a remark, Sanji glanced at the swordsman's three swords lying beautifully on his couch and smirked. "We'll see about that."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

About five blocks away from Sanji's place, the two men make it right under the five minute mark by entering the cafe where Law sat in the corner away from the rest of the crowd, typing away on his slick Apple laptop in front of him. Despite the fact that he was alone, he was taking space at a six-person table but the cafe employees didn't seem to mind as it was a weekday and only a few college students were occupying the place.

"Yo," Sanji greeted.

When Law looked up, Zoro could immediately see that the dark circles under his eyes had deepened and darkened. His sclera were bloodshot and his iris had contracted. He was definitely sleep deprived, but it seemed that he wasn't dying to sleep. So it was safe to assume that this was like any other day for him.

"Hey," Law responded in a haste, looking up at them for a second. "Take a seat. Robin and a man named Aokiji should be joining us soon."

Zoro glanced at the three empty seats as he and Sanji made their way to claim a chair, the two of them sitting side by side. He could feel the heat of Sanji's presence next to him, filling him up with warmth and comfort.

"Aokiji?" Sanji asked.

Law looked up for the second time from his screen and gave a stare that lingered for more than a few seconds. "You know how Robin has been running away from the CP9? Aokiji is the one helping her out, hiding her identity and taking her to safe places where she wouldn't be recognized."

"Ah," Sanji gave a knowing response.

As Law's attention drifted back into whatever was on his laptop, Sanji went over to the cashier to pay for five cups of coffee and an egg and cheese croissant, talking excitedly and flirting with the cute girl with brown hair and innocent eyes as she made the coffee for him. All the while Zoro rolled his eyes.

"He seems happy," Law murmured, his eyes still focused on the screen so it took a few seconds for Zoro to register that he was actually talking to him.

For a moment, he thought Law was talking about Sanji with the girl but quickly realized he was talking about Sanji with him. "I guess," he replied, not knowing what to say. Sanji had been acting the same ever since he met him, even though it was surely a roller coaster ride throughout.

"He seems lifted, like he forgot about all the shit that happened to him and he's able to finally move on."

Before Zoro could respond, Sanji strolled over with five cups of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. The delicious aroma filling up the air. "I put almond milk in everyone's coffee, hope no one is allergic to nuts," he jokingly told them. "And if anyone else is hungry, let me know."

Zoro and Law both shook their head. Zoro wasn't even used to getting up before noon, so his stomach hadn't even registered that he was awake yet.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Robin walking toward the cafe across the street outside of the window, appearing short next to the tall and slim figure next to her, whom he assumed was Aokiji. He had a grey beanie on his head and an olive jacket that slung low all the way down to his knees, and how he found a jacket that was long enough to fit his height was an anomaly.

The air he breathed out were smokes, crystallized in the frigid December air.

The two of them walked into the cafe and Robin smiled prettily at them, her almond shaped eyes crinkled in the corners.

"Hello," she greeted, her voice quiet but also commanding their attention.

Aokiji seemed like an odd fit in the cafe, as a few college students with Airpods in their ears looked up for a glimpse of the tall figure looming over them, but their attention snapped back to their books as he sat down next to Law.

"Yo," the man said, whose features seemed to be a mix of Asian and African, and in the midst of his thirties. His afro peeked out beneath his beanie and he took quick sips of his coffee that was placed in front of him by Sanji. "So Law called me at 3am telling me that this is an emergency with a guy named Roronoa?"

"That's me," Zoro felt like he should raise his hand but kept his hands around his coffee.

"Yes," Law quickly took the lead by interjecting and closing his laptop. "We're here to discuss Roronoa, who I believe is a vital piece to you as well, Aokiji. He's a link to the CP9. He's close with Kaku, whom you came to know as the Giraffe as that's his nickname in CP9, and came in contact with Lucci, the Tiger."

Aokiji frowned, taking the information in, and stared quizzically at the green haired man sitting across him.

"Roronoa, I assume you were part of an underground organization? Which one?"

All of their eyes rested on Zoro and he felt a lump clinging in the back of his throat, suddenly nervous about the fact that he was telling his secrets to a complete stranger, who quite frankly, looked like a homeless old man dressed in nice clothes.

"Aokiji," Robin interrupted. "We should give him some space. He probably doesn't want to talk about his life to a couple of strangers who just walked in." Her voice was calm and collected, meticulous and strategic, but also warm and inviting. She was a woman above all women, Zoro thought.

"Robin, my swan, who is this man? I feel like I know him." Sanji finally made his presence known, glancing at Aokiji with suspicion.

The man sighed out a smokey air that contrasted his cold breath with his hot coffee. "Of course you know me, Sanji. I could never forget those curly brows. We worked together ten years ago on the case with your father, well, before I was laid off the case and my job, partly because they decided CP9 had a better chance of doing what I struggled to do."

Sanji opened his mouth and closed it, feeling as exposed as Zoro felt, probably, or even more. The air felt chilly despite the warm air gushing out of the ventilators and the hot coffee emanating its heat to everyone's frozen hands.

"Aokiji," Robin pressed, warning this time, a subtle hint of venom in her look as her protectiveness over Sanji blanked her.

The man sighed again. "I know, I know. On a more pressing matter, Robin and I have been looking for the CP9 members for the past four years. I'm not on the side of justice nor with criminals," he firmly stated, glancing at Zoro momentarily as he said the word 'criminals' before continuing to explain himself.

"What I'm trying to do is outside of the law. Protect those who need protection and arrest those who deserve to be arrested. The CP9 is an organization run by the lawful government attempting to trial an underground organization doing the same things as them, brainwashing children and raising them to be cold blooded killers. That's a hypocrisy on every level of the spectrum and we intend to put an end to it."

Zoro remembered Sanji telling him the same exact thing.

A cog in the machine, no matter which side of the law one was in. He wondered whether the hypocrisy ran deep in every human being, despite how much they masqueraded in this game of life with the fake rules of justice in place.

Where was he in this game?

"So, Aokiji, I read most of the documents you've sent me last night. Most of the information are not viable in terms of finding them, but I thought one might be useful."

He pulled out a document from his backpack. It had a picture of an orphanage where Lucci and Kaku grew up together. Law summarized that the two of them were pulled out to join the CP9 at the age of five when they both scored incredibly high on their tests and excelled in sports and any other physical endurance tests. The document elaborated that they spent the most time together when they were young, while they hardly talked to anybody else from the CP9 crew.

"There's no doubt about it. The two of them are communicating somehow," Law concluded.

"They're professionals so they might be using burner phones," Robin suggested.

"No, still too risky. Even if people can't track their locations with burner phones there's still a chance that their conversation can get tapped and their codes might be deciphered. They have to be meeting in person. I don't know if they're hiding from just the underground organization or the government also."

Zoro recalled the night that he saw Kaku at the underground arena.

"He saw Kaku at the arena," piped Sanji. "The night of Luffy's fight with Enel."

"Good fight," Law noted.

Aokiji gave a long hum before suggesting, "Maybe they're meeting at the arena then? It wouldn't be a bad place to meet, given that the governmental authorities aren't allowed to step in unless they agree to take part in the gambling, and most of them are wearing masks to disguise who they really are."

"Kaku wasn't wearing a mask when I saw him," Zoro told him.

"Maybe Kaku isn't the one under the radar, not like the way Lucci is," Law suggested. "It's safe to assume that Lucci is the one wearing the mask."

Sanji who had been quietly munching on his breakfast sandwich looked up at Zoro, who happened to catch his eye in the midst of their conversation, and followed his eye that trailed its way toward Aokiji. A look of suspicion and distrust. It was clear that Sanji did not recall this memory that Aokiji had mentioned earlier.

"What should we do fellas? It would be ideal to catch them red handed. I'm no longer affiliated with governmental duties, but the law enforcement is on my side. I know a couple of people who'd be more than willing to help out."

Robin finished Aokiji's thought, "Just because we catch them won't win us the battle, but catching Lucci and Kaku means that Roronoa might have a key to freedom and I, too, might find a way to expose the CP9 to the world."

It was an inspiring speech and everything about Robin and Aokiji's mission was rather admirable, contrasting Zoro's own motives of saving himself. He wasn't interested in exposing the CP9 nor destroying his organization that created monsters out of children like himself; it just so happened that his goals and theirs aligned. He wondered if he happened to be taken into the side of justice, Robin and Aokiji would be after him as well.

It was an easily invoked alternate reality scenario.

He just wanted to find the boss of his organization so he could save his own neck; to find out what actually happened that night and to prevent it from happening again.

But it wasn't that simple, was it? More was at sake, much more than his own life. He has someone to protect now and he didn't even want the thought of losing him. That someone had much more to live for than him. He had a dream, friends, his own restaurant, and a heart that managed to save Zoro from plunging into what he had been raised to be: a cold blooded assassin.

"So, here's the plan…" Law began. "Is everyone free tomorrow night?"

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

When Aokiji stepped outside to have a smoke, Sanji followed after him. Zoro thought he needed some privacy talking about his father, a clearly sore topic for the blond, something he wasn't ready to talk about with Zoro yet.

"Zoro," Robin called out, not in a tone to demand his attention but more of stating it, simply putting it out so he may pick it up.

The swordsman turned his attention away from Sanji grabbing a stick from Aokiji's hand. He stared at the woman with crescent shaped eyes and black hair cascading down her tanned shoulders, wondering what she had to say.

Law sat silently next to Robin, his eyes fixated on his computer screen once more.

"So, Sanji tells me that you need an identity?" Robin asked, her hands knitted together next to her empty cup. "I might be able to help you uncover your original identity with your name, if you're actually Zoro Roronoa."

_He did? The cook?_  Zoro was bewildered, but in the way where his chest warmed up with the thought of Sanji looking out for him in every way possible.

"I think that's my name. Every kid is given their original name. I think it's too much of a hassle to create new ones rather than recycle our old ones."

"I know someone who could help. You might be able to find your parents, if that's what you're interested in," Robin suggested, opening a door that he hadn't even thought about. "I also found my mother who had been looking for me all my life. You might find yours who might've been also."

His head was spinning with all these possibilities, things that he had never even considered before.  _Parents? Him?_  Who would've thought that he also, once upon a time, had parents doting on him, and he could've had a somewhat normal upbringing.

"Of course, I'll give you time to think about it. I know it's a lot to take in all at once," she said as though she read his mind.

"For now, I just want my own name back," he answered in what he intended to be a loud and confident tone, but all that came out was a thin and quavering voice.

He didn't like feeling weak, but there was no reason for putting up a pretense with people who were just trying to help.

"Okay, give me a week and your name will be yours," she told him, all formal and businesslike.

Zoro wasn't the type to give or receive gratitude. He had never done a favor out of the goodness of his heart. If he saved someone it was just out of his own morals, and if he killed someone it was out of duty for his organization. He lived a life of solitude, never owing or being owed. Right now, he felt that he owed the woman in front of him his entire life.

"Thank you," he croaked, feeling the words unusual in his mouth.

She smiled at him, a rather pretty one even for an already pretty woman like her. "You're welcome," she answered. "Law and I understand how important our identities are, and we'd be more than happy to help you out."

Law looked up from his screen and gave him a shit eating grin, "Don't cry now, mossy," sounding oddly like Sanji.

The swordsman grinned back at him, feeling an invigorating surge of energy rushing through him from Law's provoking comment, and wondered whether he was a masochist for feeling this way.

Aokiji and Sanji returned to the table, filling up the space with a scent of cigarettes, different from the one Zoro was used to as the smell had more of an earthy hue. The blond seemed more relaxed, whether that was because of the conversation or the nicotine Zoro had to take a guess.

"Well, Aokiji and I will be taking our leave now," Robin announced as she stood up from her chair, the flat of her palms on the table. "We'll keep in touch, Law, and see you all tomorrow."

Aokiji nodded to Sanji as a goodbye gesture, who in return gave a small smile.

"I'm going to go too," Law told them with a big yawn. "I need some sleep."

Sanji and Zoro were left alone after all of them went to wherever they needed to be. It was around noon now and the sun was peeking out in all its glory, but of course it wasn't doing anything for the frosty December air. Sanji grabbed another cup of coffee for himself and matcha tea for Zoro before walking outside, feeling the chill penetrating his jacket.

"It's Christmas soon," Sanji told him. "In a few days." He was probably reminded from seeing the city decorated in red and green lights, and markets selling pine trees.

_What a bright time, it's the right time_ , the song that was playing on the radio when he first woke up at Sanji's place echoed inside of his head.

_To rock the night away_...

Zoro remembered the Christmas days spent for his organization. It was a festival alright. A prime time for them to go out on a hunt and kill some people, who had decidedly let their guards down to spend their time with family, alone and unguarded as their bodyguards, too, were home spending time with their families.

Christmas didn't mean a single thing to him other than seeing a few branches light up and a poster of a fat white man dressed in a red costume plastered everywhere.

"What about it?" he asked, his mind flipping back to the conversation shared with Robin, thinking about his identity. He didn't want to think about Christmas and those bloody colored memories that came with it.

Sanji seemed to hesitate before asking him, "Well, you think you'll be around?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You told me you were planning to leave," he argued. "I know that was before our plan and all, but I'd like to know what you're planning to—"

"My name, cook," Zoro interrupted the rambling blond. "You told Robin to find it for me."

Sanji frowned from the change of topic but soon after, realizing what the swordsman was really telling him, his whole demeanor lightened up from a frown to a forgiving smile. "Oh shit, yeah, what did she say, marimo?"

"That's my answer to your question," Zoro pressed, laughing at the roundabout way he brought Sanji to a response.

_That'll teach him to fuck with me when I ask him questions_ , he thought while mentally bringing back the invisible scoreboard again.

The cook raised a brow, "So, does that mean you're staying?"

Zoro feigned a roll of his eyes and sighed, implying that the answer was rather obvious and Sanji was slow to figure it out.

If they weren't in public he was sure that he would've earned himself a kick to the head, but it was all calculated, as he pulled the blond's body closer to him by the waist, which grabbed a number of looks from those passing by them.

_Let them look_ , a voice in his head said.

"Oi," Sanji said out of surprise, without resisting the firm grip Zoro had on his waist; his body pressed up against the muscular form before him. They were close enough for Sanji's smokey breath to tickle his nose.

The world around them had dissipated. The voices of the people, their footsteps, the cars rolling by with their loud engines and horns, and the city itself all muffled into the background scene; a camera lens that focused on one thing and the rest a blur, was what happened to Zoro as he found himself looking at Sanji. Their morning conversation flicking in and out of his mind, reminding him that he could touch the blond like this as they had already confirmed their feelings to one another.

_I like him_ , a dangerous thought entered the cavern of his mind.

_I may even love him_ , the thought escalated.

_When's the last time I'd ever been so happy? Have I ever been happy at all before meeting him?_

He didn't know what he wanted. Whether he wanted to bring down the organization or even find the ones who were trying to kill him. He didn't really care for vengeance. All he knew was that he wanted  _this_.

He wanted to hold onto it so bad that he was willing to jump into a field of war, of blades and guns and blood. Just to be with the man in front of him. And it was so obvious that Sanji knew this, just from the look in his eyes, how much he held power over Zoro and how much the swordsman fell for him in such a short span of time.

The blond knew as he reached forward to cup the back of Zoro's neck and bring their lips together, and Zoro understood how much trouble he was in as he felt Sanji's lips curl into a smile against his own. 

* * *

**AN** : It's been over a month since I last updated, sorry about that! I got another part time job and it's been a crazy month. 

Anyways, the plot will soon pick up and I can't wait to see your responses/comments!

 


	11. Inner Turmoil

Prior to proceeding with their plans, Law met with Robin and Aokiji then Sanji and Zoro.

He was wide awake this time. He explained that he had a nap and an anime night with Luffy, catching up on their favorite anime series, "My Hero Academia." Sanji admitted that he was still on season one despite how much Luffy tried to shove it down his throat, raving how All Might is a cool guy and how he likes Midoriya despite the fact that he's a weakling. He said that it reminded him of a guy he knows in real life named Koby, who apparently became stronger after being bullied many times in the past

Law came over with his Apple laptop in hand and a small pistol wrapped around in paper towels at the bottom of his backpack. Upon arriving to the house, that was the first thing he decided to show them.

He unraveled the paper towels one by one to reveal a slick metal surface, small but the belly rounded out, revealing that it was capable of holding more than just one bullet.

"This little baby can kill you in an instant," he told them as he carefully weighed it in his palm, grasping the handle and the trigger, feeling the cold metal texture against his flesh. Zoro knew exactly how it felt to hold the delicate mechanism in one's hand.

"Something I kept over the years, stolen from Doflamingo."

His thumb glided over a flamingo engraved on the side of the gun, feeling the etched symbol roughly grazing against his soft flesh.

"This is what killed Corason," he whispered wistfully, his eyes flashing with pain.

He handed the pistol over to Sanji, who also weighed it carefully before placing it on his counter top, before coming over to the other side of the counter where Law sat in order to comfort him.

Law rested his head on the blond's shoulder, releasing a sigh that held an immeasurable amount of pain that Zoro could not understand.

In a circular and clockwise motion, Sanji rubbed his back in a way to console and relieve his pain, even if it was just for that moment; and strangely, though it would've been perfectly reasonable for Zoro to feel jealous, he actually empathized with the two men who could connect on a much deeper level due to the similar experience of losing a father figure.

He didn't know either of their stories but the pain could be felt; a well that was so deep that one could only see darkness when peering in.

"Law, we don't need a pistol, we can all fight," Sanji told him, in a voice that was so gentle that it could've helped a baby fall asleep. "If you introduce a gun into the story, that's just asking for it to be fired."

"What story?" the swordsman asked, a brow raised.

Sanji looked up at him, with all seriousness, " _Our_  story." His voice back to normal.

The man with darkened eyes looked up, staring at the slick pistol in front of him. "I have a feeling that we're going to have to use it soon." In a deep, grave tone of voice that could only mean the truth; and Zoro had no doubts that there might be deaths going back into this shit hole he barely came out of.

The haunting past that stuck to him like glue, similarly to how it stuck to Law and Sanji as well.

A part of him, though, half believed that Kaku would be reasonable enough to listen to him before making any attempts of assassinating him. It didn't mean shit that they had been partners, hell, it probably wouldn't have mattered even if they were married. It wouldn't have evoked any sort of sympathy out of him or delayed him even for a second before killing him. He had never been on Zoro's side, the organization's, and probably not the CP9's either.

Despite the fact that Zoro has no idea what his real motive is, he feels that Kaku would at least listen, calculate and act rationally; though that rationale could easily lead to a conclusion where he decides that assassinating everyone is the most effective.

"Well, hopefully not tonight," Sanji responded darkly, darting a glance across the counter where the swordsman was standing.

Law shook his head, "No, not tonight but soon. I don't know why but I feel like  _that man_ has something to do with this situation. I feel the shadows of his imprint everywhere. The children who were taken to become assassins, the organization playing favorably for both sides of the coin, and somehow dodging the CP9 for the past ten years; doesn't that sound like Doflamingo?'

The blond considered this before asking, "Well, wouldn't you have known?"

Again, he shook his head, "I always knew what he was capable of but never what he did. Only Corason knew what Doflamingo was doing behind the scenes. He's a master puppeteer, pulling the strings in every situation, every individual, and no one knows that he's actually the one behind it all."

Zoro noticed that Law's hands were tremblings at the mention of this 'Doflamingo' guy. His naturally sunken eyes were widening in fright, but simultaneously, at the pit of those eyes was a strange glow of excitement and determination as though he had been looking forward to this day.

Could it be vengeance?

He wondered whether this 'Doflamingo' was the boss of his organization, snatching children like himself out of their normal lives and training them to kill. He never considered how wicked someone must be to pull something like that off, on such an unbelievable scale.

A single person ruining the lives of hundreds, thousands, and possibly millions.

"If it really is Doflamingo, then we're in for some serious trouble," Sanji groaned as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"This shit got complicated real quick," Law grumbled to himself before glancing at the green haired man who stood by them silently.

"I think you brought a bomb to our family: Doflamingo, CP9, and a side of our childhood traumas."

The blond rolled his eyes, "The only thing he got going for him is his body."

Law and Zoro glanced at the cook with questioning stares, who seemed to have just realized what spilled out of his mouth.

"I—I mean that he's all brawn and no brain," he stammered in a way to recover from his previous comment, but it was already too late, especially as his pale ivory features reddened which gave away his embarrassment. "Not that I think his body is great…" he tried again before failing miserably to patch up the misunderstanding, which eventually led him to say, "Forget it, fuck y'all."

Law grinned, probably finding this shit hilarious as Zoro was, if not more. "Don't worry, Sanji-ya. If it makes you feel better, I also think Zoro has a banging body."

The blond rolled his eyes while Zoro opened and closed his mouth, not knowing how to respond.

Luckily, Law decided to change the tide of their conversation before either Sanji or Zoro could say anything else.

"Anyways, while Robin and Aokiji head downstairs you guys stay upstairs, and I will stay by the main entrance. That way, we can all close in on our enemy, or enemies, simultaneously. I also brought you guys a subtle communicative device, so we can update one another on what's happening tonight," he told them as he handed them a box.

Inside the box were two small wireless headphones, similar to Airpods but even smaller.

When Sanji experimentally placed one inside his ear, the black square frame quickly disappeared beneath his mass of blond hair.

Law explained to them both how the device functioned, which Sanji listened to closely as Zoro ran his thumb over the metallic surface of the device. The other side had a rounded out shape that could easily fit in one's ear canal, with a metallic netting that indicated where the sound came out of.

"How do you know that they will be there tonight, Law?" Sanji asked.

The raven haired man shook his head, "I don't. If we strike out tonight then so be it, but my gut tells me that something is going to happen tonight."

"Hopefully something that'll lead to something else," the blond added.

"I'm sure of it," Law confirmed.

In moments like these, Zoro understood how important gut instincts were. They were more sacred than intellect at times, especially on missions regarding life and death; much like how in the midst of fights, people didn't have time to think but only to act. Zoro too felt that something would happen tonight. It was the same feeling right before a mission. A sense of bloodlust, the way his hands could feel the invisible shape of his swords and scabbards weighing down the side of his waist.

Law's thumb glided over the flamingo once more before wrapping it up, and Zoro could imagine the cool texture of its metallic surface sending a ripple of waves down his spine. A simple and delicate creation could be the end of existence, much like how it ended his life as an assassin and began this one with Sanji.

"I'm making dinner, do you want to stay before we head out?" Sanji suggested to Law, who was already packed to leave.

"Nah, I'll see you guys tonight, I just wanted to drop the headphone off."

He casted a quick wave before grabbing his brown leather jacket from the hanger by the door.

"Be there by ten and shoot me a text!" he shouted as his footsteps echoed in the distance, with the door slamming behind him to indicate that he had actually left.

A few seconds of silence passed by before Zoro turned to look at Sanji, who gave him a dancing eyebrow gesture and waltzed over to him. A lecherous grin on his face that simultaneously creeped him out and turned him on; and he wondered what a sick freak he must be to feel both at once.

"How about…" Sanji began as he managed to squirm out of his T-shirt beneath his pink apron. "We continue what we started."

The swordsman groaned, watching the cook rub himself in the crotch to help them both get aroused.

The past two days had been a nonstop workout for him, and to be honest he was quite sore.

He wondered how the blond had enough stamina and the libido to continue, but he also wasn't one to back down from a challenge; and he couldn't lie, the sight of seeing the pretty blond in his tight fitting pink apron with his perky pink nipples rubbing against the side of the fabric was enough to get Zoro semi-aroused.

His dick, as abused as it had been, seemed to ache in sweet persuasion.

It seemed to enjoy the sight of the rising tent beneath the apron, tightly choking the head of Sanji's cock, which he could vividly imagine coated with pre-cum. His mind enjoyed and hated the fact that Sanji was partly covered, restricted by the damn pink apron, but his imagination ran wild in all directions as the man in front of him turned away from him and ran his hand down his bare, muscular torso, teasingly shoving a finger into himself to show what Zoro was missing out on.

The swordsman groaned again as he felt all the blood rushing into his crotch, even the slightest movement of his leg and the brush of his pants torturing his swollen dick.

He quickly closed in on the blond and twisted his body around, to have his erection press up against his plump and muscular backside. With a firm grip, he held both of Sanji's wrists in his hand and dry humped him against the kitchen counter.

With a choked growl, the blond told him, "Let me cook."

Such an odd request that got Zoro completely dumbfounded.

"We can spice it up," Sanji added with a wink that could only be called lewd.

"It's unhygienic," Zoro replied lamely, his brain not functioning properly as all the blood had rushed to the lower part of his body.

"Who's going to eat it other than us?" Sanji questioned, his swirly brows performing its usual tricks and drawing him to its mysterious existence.

Zoro nodded in agreement, swept away by his own and the blond's desires, feeling the waves of arousal building up with each piece of clothing dropped to the kitchen floor and the scent of spices hitting his nostrils simultaneously. The cook was managing to cook as he moaned and muffled a euphoric scream as Zoro was diligently tending to his backside. The pleasures of all senses heightened and his pores wide open, covering them both with a thin film of pleasant sweat and saliva.

He explored the physical sensations offered to him by Sanji, whom the meaning and safety of the world hinged upon, and prayed that the dreadful gut feeling in his stomach was the same as Law's.

He prayed, though he did not believe in God so his prayers were more so one to himself, that he would protect Sanji Blackleg no matter what shit blew up from this point on.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The feeling of his swords by his side almost got him emotional. They weren't just weapons nor a means of protection to him; they were more personal than that, sacred, much like the memories he locked away in the cavern of his mind and the dreams he held for him and Kuina.

One was more special than the others. Wado Ichimonji was originally Kuina's father's, a man whom he had never met but heard many great things about from Kuina.

She was different from the other kids in the organization as she knew her name and her parents, taken at a later age; but given that her memories were intact, she had a difficult time overcoming them. When she first arrived, she had Wado Ichimonji in her possession and Zoro was instantly interested in fighting her, as he had just picked up swords himself and had the delusion that he was already the best in the world. She broke that illusion in an instant as she struck her arm down in a single swing and beat his ego to the ground.

After that, the more Zoro came around to swing at her the angrier she became, using him as a punching bag to release her anger. At the fact that she was taken by the organization, that her and her dad fought the night before he died, and how fast the world has changed for her in one day.

The young Zoro did not understand at the time but he took it all in: all of her anger and sadness.

Seeing Wado glimmer beneath the moonlight reminded him of Kuina, and he felt her presence close to him, watching over him.

"Zoro," Sanji whispered by his side, reminding him that they were almost at the empty warehouse, the same entrance they used last time.

The cook had managed to cook a delicious meal despite the 'distraction' that had incurred, and being reminded of those earlier events Zoro couldn't help but to stifle a chuckle.

He wondered how Sanji was able to fluently multitask and whether that had been his plan all along; his hidden kink perhaps, or something he had done with his previous partners? His smile quietly turned into a frown, but he shook away those thoughts upon arriving to the empty warehouse.

The process was almost the same as last time.

The banging on the floor with the flat of Sanji's shoes, the scatters of small rodents and rats in fear of the sudden racket, and the stairs that were revealed after the lift of the metal door. The only distinguishing factor this time around was that the security had changed once they crossed the tunnel, to a man with a nasty look on his face and bright red hair.

"Kidd," the blond man neither greeted him nor said it in disdain. It was more of a statement.

The red haired man's mouth ripped open into a smile upon realizing that it was Sanji in front of him, one that was eerily similar to the Joker; and naturally emitting off of him, exuded a pompous and commanding aura.

"It's good to see you Sanji," he said in a voice that didn't sound neither jovial nor delighted to see him.

He had a flashy outfit on. A v-neck black T-shirt that scooped all the way down to the lower part of his chest, leopard pants, and an obnoxiously bright red fur coat hanging on his shoulder.

Kidd tilted his head and his slanted eyes widened, a degree of curiosity and amusement. "Why the  _fuck_  are you sneaking around in the tunnels, huh? Were trying to avoid me in the front and decided to take a chance with those piss stains stationed here." As his words were confirmed by the silence, he continued with a taunting smile. "Unlucky for you and your green haired friend, I was thrown back here today for picking a fight with a government dog."

The overwhelming masculine aura emitting off of this man was stirring an urge to fight within Zoro, who didn't feel necessarily threatened but felt as though Kidd was pushing him back against the wall.

As Zoro's hands instinctively shifted over to his swords, Kidd's eyes naturally followed his movement and noticed his weapons.

"So, I'm guessing you're sneaking around because you're bringing in a swordsman I've never seen here before," Kidd gave them a pretty accurate description without being fazed by the fact that Zoro was about to pull his swords out on him.

"You guys better give me a good fucking reason or I'm not letting you in."

"Law," Sanji said, one word and one word only.

That one word seemed to have an effect on Kidd as his grin was ripped out of his face, left with a look of anger and a tinge of concern.

"What about Law?" he asked slowly.

The cook nonchalantly shrugged, "I just shot him a message. He'll be down here soon to explain."

Kidd growled, "Or you could fucking explain it yourself before I beat the shit out of you."

As he made a slight movement forward, Zoro shifted between the two men with a warning glare, drawing a few inches of his sword out of its sheath.

"It's two against one, I suggest you stay back," the swordsman threatened in a low tone of voice, staring into those ebony eyes that seemed to be lit with flames.

In the echoing darkness stretched out behind them, Kidd's growl could be heard as the sound vibrated against the walls and bounced around them. Beneath his fur coat that was a darker shade of red than his hair, revealed a robotic arm, which he held out in front of him and experimentally opened and closed.

"Your threats are dogshit compared to  _this_  man," he referred to his arm. "You're lucky I'm not in the mood for another fight tonight."

As the red haired man retracted his metaphorical claws, Zoro too withdrew his swords and backed away to be by Sanji's side once more.

It wasn't long before Law came through the other side of the door and intruded the tense space between the three men. "Yo, Zoro and Sanji, what's taking you guys so long?" Law grumpily asked before glancing to the side where Kidd sat on a low office hair.

"Oh," he gave a knowing response that answered his own question.

"Law," Kidd addressed with a passive attitude, one that was much different than the one Zoro saw earlier.

He felt that something was odd between the two men. They appeared very uncomfortable to be in each others' presence, with Kidd's passive and aversive attitude and Law clearing his throat before speaking.

"I need them both, Kidd, can you just let them go?" Law asked, in a way of asking for a favor from an old friend.

The swordsman expected him to have another fit of anger in the same manner as he did a moment ago, but Kidd only huffed out an air of annoyance and clicked his tongue. "Look, I get that you have your problems but I'm also at work right now, and our policy doesn't allow strangers who weren't vetted by the guys above," he explained to Law in a calm and rational tone of voice, pointing above to demonstrate that there were people above him in status that could get him in a fair amount of trouble if he broke the rules.

The raven haired man sighed, "I know how it works, Kidd. You know I'm kind of working for them too. But just this once, can you break the rules?"

This time the aloof attitude broke, a crack in his demeanor.

Kidd's voice rose in pitch as he angrily snapped, "For who? You? Who the fuck are you to me right now. You don't have any fucking right to demand shit from me."

He stood up from his chair, and his livid features were even more terrifying than before. The muscles of his face tightened, pulling in several directions at once and formed deep wrinkles in his skin. His eyes tilted at an angle, his jaws tensed, and his lips curled back into a snarl, exposing his large white teeth that resembled a wild beast's. Despite standing directly in front of such intimidation, the muscles in Law's face did not even flinch.

Zoro felt the heat of Kidd's anger tearing into his flesh.

It was a different sort of anger than the one he showed earlier. It was just a child's tantrum before, nothing more than a warning bite from an irritated dog. Now, it was soaked with emotions, leaking as it had filled up to the brim, spilling onto Law who probably had something to do with them.

Upon seeing Law's stoic expression, Kidd grabbed the collar of his shirt and brought their faces close to one another.

The raven haired man was limp in Kidd's hold much like a doll in a kid's hand.

In the midst of that anger and chaos, Zoro thought he saw a hint of longing in Kidd's eyes.

Sanji jumped into that chaos in an instant and swung his leg forward, sending Kidd to fly across the room in a similar way he had done to Zoro a few days ago.

Law, who had been released from the hold, glanced at them both and motioned with his head for them to head out the door that he had entered from.

"Hurry," he demanded.

Kidd's body was slumped against the wall. As Zoro staggered across the room, he shot empathetic glances toward the red haired man as he knew exactly how painful it was to be kicked by Sanji.

He half expected the red haired hair to chase them down, but he didn't.

The three of them sprinted away from that room regardless of that fact, the stickiness of Kidd's emotions clinging onto them like glue.

As their pace slowed down, Sanji broke the silence by asking, "So he's still  _that_  mad at you?" Stating the obvious while referring to an incident that had transpired between them in the past

Law emitted a long, deep, and audible breath that expressed a deep feeling of sadness and tiredness.

"To be honest, I didn't think he would be this mad still. I saw him around here and there, just glimpses, but this is the first real exchange we've had since  _then_. I felt paralyzed."

"What the hell happened?" Zoro asked, voicing his confusion.

What could he possibly have done to get a man  _that_ angry, though Kidd didn't seem like a man that hard to anger.

"It's a long story, I can't really discuss it right now since we have to focus on finding Lucci and Kaku, but to summarize: we were childhood friends and his heart was broken by me. And we ended on really bad terms, as you saw."

 _Oh_ , Zoro thought.

It all made sense why Kidd acted like a lunatic earlier. Every bits and pieces traced back to Law. The erupting emotions, irrationality, and hidden longing were all well reasonable in the sphere of a broken heart.

"We should get going. Robin and Aokiji are waiting for us upstairs," Law informed them, his manner switched back to pure professionalism in contrast to Kidd's outburst of emotions.

Zoro glanced at the back of Sanji's head and felt the welling of emotions inside of him as it always did when he thought of the cook, and wondered if he too would react the same as Kidd had if his heart had been broken.

There was a part of him that understood the red haired man but couldn't simultaneously.

Despite the fact that they had only known each other for a couple of days, the feelings evoked from his interactions with Sanji were so intense that it swallowed him whole, so he could only imagine having years of childhood between them like Law and Kidd had.

By the time the three men had reached Robin and Aokiji, who were in inconspicuous outfits of all black and had masks in hand, Law was able to find composure and a level of calm despite the dampened mood that was still hovering over them.

Although Robin didn't say anything, it was clear that she had an idea that something happened from the way her questioning eyes met Sanji's.

"Last night, I purchased the software on a site where you could also hire assassins," he told them, shooting a glance at Zoro before continuing. "It will allow my laptop to scan the area for the words 'lucci' and 'kaku' on devices that have the capabilities to use WiFi, and once the software scans those words, we will individually, or as teams, move toward the targets. We will be able to communicate through the earphones I gave you guys earlier today, which is a special kind that will not emit any sort of electronic frequencies to the public and we will be able to converse in complete privacy. No one will be able to tap into our frequency, at least not without my knowledge."

The information was a reiteration or a summarization of what he had previously told them.

The earphones were Aokiij's idea, who suggested it because of his prior experiences working with the government, knowing how easy it is for them to tap into phone calls and temper with the conversations.

"The CP9 is an elite group, and we'll be in serious trouble once we mess with their top two members," Aokiji added, warningly.

"We're already neck deep into this shit, so let's just get this shit over with," the blond grunted, his response causing the serious facades to crack all around him.

With a weak chuckle, Law nodded in agreement.

As they found seats in the back of the auditorium, there was a fight happening in the center between two men named Don Krieg and Arlong. It was nothing too spectacular, not like the way it had been with Luffy and Enel. There was barely a crowd today and with a glimpse Zoro understood why. They appeared to be formidable fighters but not outstanding ones, using only their brute strength to beat their opponent.

Law's fingers glided across the keyboard in a fast and swift movement, typing words and symbols furiously.

As his eyes were simply focused on the task in front of him, he held a stoic expression, not giving away any hint that he was thinking about the earlier incident with Kidd.

"Roronoa," Aokiji grabbed his attention. He sat next to him with his long legs oddly folded in front of him. "You think there's a way for you to just talk to Kaku since you've been partners with him for a long time?"

The green haired man pursed his lips. He had thought about the possibility but hasn't grasped exactly what he would say.

"I'm not too sure," he answered honestly. "If there's a way then I'd like to find it. We're both formidable fighters, so even if either one of us wins the fight it won't be without a scratch."

Aokiji considered his answer and nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Good, you're a pacifist. What are your impressions of Lucci and Kaku, you think they'll be willing to just listen?"

"Kaku is reasonable and calculative. I'm willing to bet that he'd listen, but Lucci…" Zoro recalled his own impression of Lucci. A man who was willing to kill them, weak and helpless children, without thought if they dared to oppose him. "I think he's more of a sadistic who enjoys fights and it's most likely that he'll attack us without hesitation."

Aokiji leaned back against his seat, his hands tucked behind his head in the form of a pillow.

"I guess we just have to prepare for the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is for both parties to walk away with the information they need, like who the leader of your organization is, or any information about the CP9, though I highly doubt they'd give it away so freely."

"I thought you guys were aiming to catch Lucci and Kaku," Sanji intervened.

The raven haired woman answered in his stead. "Aokiji and my goals aren't to catch Lucci and Kaku, but to make our encounters with them useful so we'd be able to bring down the CP9 as an organization."

The blond nodded understandingly, his feet tapping erratically against the floor and his teeth biting his tattered lips.

He's having a nicotine withdrawal, Zoro noticed.

"The only problem is that we don't have a single thing they need, so it might be difficult to make a satisfactory proposition without a fight," Aokiji gave his input but seeing the lack of response he shrugged his shoulder. "Whatever, we'll see how it goes."

"Why are you guys helping me?" Zoro asked. "It doesn't really seem like you need to do this in order to accomplish your goals of bringing down the CP9."

Aokiji glanced at him with a lazy look on his face, as though Zoro's question was not worth his full attention. "We're not helping  _you_  per se, it just so happens that your organization is connected to the CP9 and it's not a far-fetched idea to knock down an organization that's doing the same things as the CP9."

"As I said, I'm not with the code abiding to the law. Just to my own moral obligations, which both sides are violating," he explained further.

The swordsman understood, though he himself didn't have a moral code strong enough to define yet. Everything he did was more on a whim or determined by an external force. He didn't have any feelings of personal justice or vengeance. He didn't feel the need to hate or blame a man named 'Doflamingo' for everything that happened to him; but he also knew that if this 'Doflamingo' were to take Sanji away from him then there'd be hell to pay for.

"I downloaded the software," Law announced, as the match in front of them ended between Arlong and Krieg, with Arlong hovering over the beaten down Krieg, holding his arms in the air to a nonexistent audience.

A few scattered claps across the stadium.

"We'll be on our way then," Robin told them.

Aokiji stood up from his seat to stand by her side. They held up the masks painted in white with the distinctive facial features outlined in black, similar to a stone statue with an expressionless face that was neither feminine or masculine. They each placed the squarish device inside their ears and waited for the connection to link before walking away.

Law tested out the device by calling out their names. "Robin, Aokiji, can you guys hear me clearly?" A small pause, listening to the other end. "Yeah, you guys are clear. I'll activate the software once you guys are in your designated places."

The blond pulled out his cigarette pack, which Zoro raised a brow at, but quickly came to a realization that Sanji hid the earphones inside with his cigarettes. He held out the earphone to Zoro and placed a cigarette in his mouth.

"You can't smoke in here," the swordsman reminded him as he placed the earphone inside his right ear, hearing a small beep before it connected him to the conversation with others.

"I just feel comfortable with it in my mouth," Sanji told him as he too connected to the conversation.

With a playful grin and a low snicker, Zoro said, "That's what she said," to Sanji, earning him a small jab in his chest.

"Oi, oi, keep it professional here," Aokiji told them, probably in a joking manner despite how serious he sounded.

"Law, we're here," Robin's low and soft voice tickled their ears.

The raven haired man tapped on his keyboard, "Okay Robin, it's activated. It'll just take a minute before it finds who within this building has those names on their devices."

In front of them, men in white medic uniforms came out with a stretcher in hand to haul the massive Krieg on top, while some of them tended to the light wounds on Arlong. Zoro had to admit how sad that fight had been in comparison to Luffy's. He remembered how the raven haired man's rumbustious energy spread across the stadium, evoking Zoro's own blood to boil and adrenaline to pump in his ears in excitement.

His fingers rhythmically tapped against his swords, visualizing the metal blade clanging against the sheath, breathing alongside him in anticipation.

It felt similar to how he felt before a mission.

 

* * *

 **AN** : This chapter was just drama after drama, but it was very enjoyable for me to write.

I would like to divulge deeper into the story between Kidd + Law later on, and maybe have a side chapter after this story is finished if you guys are interested. 

As always, thank you for your comments and I'm deeply interested in what you guys think!


	12. Loving You

"Keep going forward, you're almost there," Law's voice rang in his ear alongside the echoes of his three gold earrings.

"Do you see anyone?"

Zoro searched the vicinity for Kaku or Lucci. There were a couple of people around the area, all strangers without masks on. Just random folks who wanted to see a good fight and have a drink at the bar.

"There's no Kaku or Lucci," Sanji whispered quietly, and his voice brushed into Zoro's ear like the sweetest melody he'd ever heard of. "How about you guys?" he asked Aokiji and Robin, as they were directly below them in the basement area.

"Negative," Aokiji's voice responded, snapping Zoro attention that was in a daze from Sanji's honeydew voice to the reality.

"There's no one here."

The swordsman looked around with a sharper mind than before, wondering who could be a member of the CP9 and what their eyes might look like: sane? detached? Cruel? His memories flashed back to the resemblance between Lucci and Kaku.

"They're directly in front of you, Sanji, Zoro," Law told them.

In front of them was a strip of bar, with the bartender in a red and green suit behind the illuminated transparent, clear counter. He expertly grabbed bottles of liquor, that were lined up as a decor on the bookshelf against his back, and tilted them into metal cups. If Zoro had to guess one person who was allegedly working with the CP9, it was that hidden figure in the corner.

He was a real piece to look at, and Zoro couldn't believe he had missed him earlier. Curly, pastel purple hair slicked back with hair gel; a deep scar on his face as though someone had thrown a glass piece and struck him. Cruel cold eyes, similar to Lucci and Kaku.

"It's him," he told the blond next to him with a small nudge of his elbow.

"Who?" Sanji squinted his eyes, as though that'd help him see better. "That guy with greasy purple hair?"

The raven haired man's instructions were slow and cautious as though he was right there with them, "Approach him, but not abruptly, we don't want to scare him off."

"How do you  _know_  that's him?" the blond asked Zoro, his eyes narrowing in caution.

"It's Spandam," the quavering voice on the other line confirmed Zoro's instincts. "Pastel pinkish purple hair that's usually greasy and gelled back. Crooked nose, sharp teeth, cruel eyes, and a malicious grin."

Robin's descriptions of the guy in front of them were dead on, and without heeding to the prior warnings given by Law, the swordsman marched forward abruptly and grabbed him by the neck.

In pure shock, Spandam squawked like a chicken and dropped his cellphone.

"Zoro!" the blond shouted his name as he quickly jogged after him, looking around to find that everybody was looking at the spectacle unfolding in front of them. "What are you doing?"

The swordsman pulled Spandam by the collar, pushed the door to the emergency staircase, and glanced at Sanji who appeared like a lost kid in an amusement park. "Pick up his phone and follow me," he ordered.

"Zoro, what the  _fuck_ ," Law cursed at him. "Stay right there, I'll be there soon. Aokiji, Robin, by the emergency staircase on the second floor."

"Got it," Aokiji answered.

Spandam was wriggling out of his grip, pushing Zoro away from him with his weak upper body strength. "Get the fuck off of me, who the hell are you?" he struggled like hell to loosen himself while his body was effortlessly dragged to the staircase where there were no more prying eyes.

"You'll  _pay_  if anything happens to me! You hear me?!" he shouted empty threats, and Zoro looked at him with an unflinching expression.

If he had been stuck in this situation with Zoro a few months ago, it would've been a terrifying set of circumstances that would have inevitably costed him his life. Lucky for him, however, there wasn't an ounce of desire in Zoro's body to kill this pathetic man in front of him and he no longer  _had_  to.

Sanji came in through the door with the phone in his hand, blocking Spandam's possible exit strategy. His eyes carefully read the situation in front of him, catching Zoro's eyes in order to find some sort of a clue.

The swordsman released his grip on the resisting man and had him fall on his back.

As soon as Spandam had toppled over, Zoro quickly moved forward to press his foot on top of him, putting a little bit of weight against his ribs in a way to warn him.

"Woah, woah, what are you doing?" Spandam stammered, feeling the weight of Zoro's foot against his ribcage and imagining, with a little bit more strength, his own body fracturing into several pieces. "We can talk, isn't that why you're here?" his breath shaking, realizing for the first time how scary it was to be beneath the green haired man's demonic gaze.

"Lucci and Kaku—" the green haired man began.

Sanji abruptly interrupted Zoro, his voice echoing in the empty staircase and in the earpiece. "Woah, chill, mosshead, let's wait for Law at least. Aokiji, Robin, anybody before we start threatening this man."

"Yes, you idiot, wait for me," Law spat into the mic. "Don't give him any unnecessary information. Even if he's weak, there's a reason why he's part of the CP9."

Spandam's eyes lit up, as if seeing hope in this shitty situation he found himself in. "Oh, you're looking for Lucci and Kaku? I can easily tell you where they are if we're in a position to negotiate, of course."

Zoro dug his heel into his ribs, painfully, and growled, "There is no room for negotiations."

Spandam gasped from the sudden pain and attempted to thwart his foot off of him with no success, as Zoro's foot acted as a steel weight that was simultaneously holding him down and reminding him of his own limitations.

"Okay!  _Okay_ ," he coughed out. "I'll tell you where they are! Just promise me that you won't kill me."

"Jesus," Aokiji remarked. "This guy is a rat."

"No, Aokiji," Robin corrected. "He's more of a snake. He may seem weak, but he's actually cunning and deceitful. He doesn't bite when he's cornered, rather, he talks his way out of things and he doesn't care whether others die in vain if it means his own survival."

" _Zoro_ , stop whatever it is that you're doing," Law warned once more.

"Sanji, make sure he doesn't do anything else until we get there." His sudden demand snapped the blond out of whatever trance he seemed to be in.

Sanji cleared his throat before answering, "Got it."

He walked away from the door he was guarding and placed his foot on Spandam, who jolted forward expecting another painful stab at his ribs, but calmed down once he realized that the blond just wanted to switch places with the green haired man. Sanji directed with his chin for Zoro to guard the door instead of threatening the pathetic greasy haired man, and the swordsman responded with an irritated sigh, a reluctant release of his foot, and a slow walk to the door.

The two men waited in silence as Spandam tested his luck with the new guy above him, hoping to budge him even in the slightest for an opening but found to his horror that the new guy's legs were similar to steel bars and completely immovable.

"Stay still, shithead," the cook subconsciously employed alliteration, like a natural poet.

A couple minutes passed before Aokiji and Robin came up the stairs and Law came in through the door that Zoro was standing in front of, and Spandam's face lit up at the sight of the raven haired woman who was clearly uncomfortable in his presence.

"Look who's here, isn't it Nico Robin!" he excitedly greeted, despite his pitiful position sprawled out on the floor. "Are you the one who coordinated this little party?"

Noticing her small trembles and aversive gaze, Sanji immediately became protective of her as he is of every woman and pressed his foot harshly, mercilessly, enough for Spandam to cry out in a series of "ow!" and squeeze his hands tightly to make fists.

"Sanji, we need him alive to ask questions," Law interfered and sat down on the bottom step of the staircase.

Sanji handed Law the cellphone, so they could access the messages that would connect them to Lucci and Kaku.

Meanwhile, Robin gently placed the mask in front of her face again. Spandam was making her thoroughly uncomfortable with his obnoxious stares and grins, as though he was the one in control of this situation.

"I got it," the raven haired man told them. "Their locations. I was able to track them down using their numbers, and it seems that they're heading toward the same place near here. We got a few minutes to catch them in mid-act. What should we do with him?" he asked, referring to Spandam.

"We could kill him," shrugged Sanji, and Spandam began to wildly wriggle beneath him again.

"Jeez, I don't even know if you're serious or not," Zoro said with a slight roll of his eyes.

 _He_ was the assassin and  _he_  was the one who didn't care to dirty his hands. What's one more out of hundreds, thousands? But he wanted to keep Sanji's hands clean.

Aokiji who had been silent the entire time next to Robin, still trembling from whatever fear Spandam was invoking, said, "If we kill him, it is inevitable that the CP9 would come looking for us, but at the same time if we don't kill him, he might come for us out of vengeance because it is in his nature. The thing is, we don't know if he wields enough power to change the course of the CP9's focus."

"He doesn't," Robin quietly whispered, her expression hidden beneath the plastic layer. "Their orders come all the way from the top."

"You heard her," Spandam cried out, in full panic mode this time. "I won't come after you, so don't kill me. You have my  _word_."

"Your word don't mean shit, egghead, so be quiet," Sanji growled, his hands tucked into his pockets looking like a true gangster threatening someone for money.

"Well," Law placed his hands on his knees as a leverage to stand up. "Why should we have unnecessary blood on our hands, right?" he glanced at the green haired man standing guard. Following him, everybody else turned their attention onto Zoro.

The swordsman frowned, wondering why they needed  _his_  approval.

Seeing Spandam's miserably pathetic expression, all the faces of the past flooded into his mind along with the thought that the world would be a much better place without people like him.

"Right," he affirmed with a slight nod of his head and Sanji loosened his hold on Spandam.

With a small yelp, the greasy purple haired man got on his knees to scurry away from them, similar to a roach, before finding enough strength in his legs to run away like a human being. "You will pay for this!" he shouted behind him, forgetting that his phone was now in their possession as he was too busy running out the door.

"What a loser," Sanji scoffed before ushering over to be by Robin's side, who managed to stop shaking like a leaf. "Are you alright, love? Why are you so afraid of that piece of trash?" he asked the raven haired woman with a softened tone of voice.

The usually calm woman took a long and deep breath before the tips of her fingers clutched the plastic frame and brought it down from her face.

"Spandam is weak but he is a cruel man, with a need to assert his power and dominance over those who can't defend themselves. When I was a child, he liked picking on me more than others. He made every day, no, every minute torturous for me."

Sanji's heart must've shook upon seeing the glistening tears in the corners of her almond shaped eyes, and the rage expanded in his chest at the thought of the little young Robin getting abused by that greasy haired motherfucker.

He grinded his teeth in seething anger and with a low growl, he said, "I'll go get him and kill that bastard."

"It's okay, Sanji. I don't want revenge, I just want peace," she told him with a graceful touch to his arm. She glanced at the swordsman who looked at them with an intense glower, and back to the cook: "To embark on a path of vengeance is to risk peace one could attain in oneself, don't you agree?"

"Christ, Robin, you're wiser than my grandma," Law commented, opening and closing Spandam's phone.

"Of course, Robin," the blond stammered with a saddened expression.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt as Law shot them a look and began to lead the group down the staircase. "We have to go, guys." Without another word, the rest of the group followed him down, in the same direction Spandam took as his getaway. There was a large metal door at the bottom of the staircase that led them outside into a cold and empty alleyway, similar to the one Zoro found himself in when he was attacked.

Except it was much colder as the December weather settled in around them.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The December air had gotten rather frosty in the last couple of days and he shivered as the brisk wind bypassed the thin layer of his rose colored windbreaker, as ironic as it sounded. The purpose of the jacket, he assumed, wore out over the years just like his white sneakers he'd miraculously managed to keep unstained despite the field he's in.

He was a perfectionist in that sense, and perhaps he would've gone mad with his own standards if there wasn't an outlet; his field of work became a therapeutic experience similar to an artist.

His footsteps were quiet, almost silent, though there was no need to be in this alleyway where only drunk or homeless men passed by, but it was a form of habit and habits were one hell of an attachment.

Without it, humans would have no clue who they are.

He chuckled silently to himself, as he saw in the far off distance, one man who could understand everything he thought and for all that he was.

He wore a top hat as usual, one that might pass him off as a circus entertainer.

It was the only thing about him that made him remotely comedic, perhaps irrational or humane. The rest of his being was serious, overwhelmingly rational like a robot that the CP9 had trained them to be.

Lucci wore a black peacoat and a white shirt underneath, walking slowly down the alleyway as though he had all the time in the world.

As he came closer, Kaku saw Lucci's eyes beneath the fluorescent street light. A single dot in each eye, never expanding or contracting as it usually does for normal humans in times of fear, lust, or excitement. He wasn't normal, and perhaps he wasn't even human anymore.

Kaku remembers, though, their time spent in the orphanage. The little Lucci who used to smile, laugh, get angry, and express whatever he felt, selfishly, as all kids are able to; and perhaps that Lucci had already died, but it was all that Kaku could remember.

"Kaku," Lucci said when he was close enough to where he was standing. "Why are you wearing such a thin jacket?"

If another were to hear this question they might have misunderstood his intentions as caring, but Kaku knew better. Lucci was genuinely curious why his actions were so illogical, to wear a thin jacket in the cold. It just didn't make much sense to him.

He laughed, "Well, I regret it now, Luch." A nickname he'd given him forever ago.

"Why did you ask to meet up with me?" Lucci asked, straightforwardly.

Always about business. He never beat around the bush to ease people in, loosen them up for a good time before the serious matters. He never understood stuff like that no matter how many times Kaku tried to explain it to him, but oh well, that's what he liked about him anyways.

"Can't we just hang out like two buddies?" he jested with a small smile. It was good to see the man, his only friend who might not even consider  _him_  a friend.

"Be serious, Kaku," Lucci told him impatiently, without a crack in his expression.

The long nosed man nodded, as he too found value in preserving time. "I found sensitive information regarding the boss."

"Is it helpful to our mission?"

Kaku considered this question but to be honest he didn't know. He brought it to Lucci's attention hoping the other man had something to contribute.

"You tell me. A few years back, before you were even sent here as a spy, the boss had a friend or a family member who worked for the government. A rather high position, I heard, and supposedly the boss killed him when he found out that he had double crossed him."

Lucci nodded, silently urging him to go on.

"The double crosser was incredibly stupid, but I suspect that it had been a deliberate move. He had been able to hide his identity and cover his tracks perfectly for the first fifteen years, and all of a sudden he exposes himself. For what? I'm not too sure. What did it risk it all for?" he asked himself and Lucci simultaneously.

The man in front of him brought his thumb to his chin, rubbing the short hairs of his beard. "Something unexpected happened. His priorities changed."

Kaku first heard a shuffle, a fidget, before he heard a voice.

"It was me," a foreign voice spoke from behind Kaku, hidden in the shadows. His footsteps were quiet as his own, but there were also others with him. Five in total lurking about, emerging from the darkness.

Lucci acted first, as he always did.

He shed his black trench coat to get rid of any extra weight and ran past Kaku to swing his leg, as fast as a baseball player with his bat, at the person standing in front of the group.

The tallest man with an afro peeking out beneath his beanie grabbed Lucci's leg with ease, a feat despite how easy he made it seem. Lucci was the strongest man out of the CP9 members, which was made up of elite fighters who excelled in strength and intelligence from an early age. Kaku was second but his strength was worldly apart from Lucci's and he never hoped to compete with him.

Likewise, to return the favor, the tall man pulled back his arm to bring momentum to his punch, which Lucci was able to block effortlessly with his palm.

"I've waited for a long time to meet you face to face," Aokiji told Lucci, a small smile on his face.

Lucci stared back at him, his eyes blank and expression aloof. "Aokiji, known as the traitor of the country. I have no business with you," he told him with another strike of his leg.

"It's too late to say that we aren't here for a fight, I suppose," the blond man spoke with a tap of his shoes against the ground, standing in between two familiar faces: Roronoa Zoro and Nico Robin.

"What a coincidence seeing you guys," Kaku spoke cautiously, attentive to their body language and the sudden possibility of them attacking. "Though, I guess this isn't a surprise for you all as you've orchestrated this whole event."

He was most aware of Zoro, whose abilities were evenly matched with his own and he knew he'd be fucked if all three decided to attack him then and there.

"Zoro, I thought you were dead," he said, which was actually the truth.

He'd disappeared on the night he'd assassinated Harvey, a millionaire entrepreneur who'd overstepped his boundaries and became too greedy by mixing in with the wrong crowd of people, like Doflamingo. On that night, Zoro pretended to be his bodyguard and ran around the streets as Kaku got down to business, and the last time he'd heard from the swordsman was through a phone call. Later that night, when Zoro didn't show up or pick up his phone, Kaku went back to the organization to report the end of his job to find out that the swordsman had disappeared completely.

"No, but I almost died that night," the green haired man told him, and Kaku saw the subtle hint of bandages beneath his clothes.

"I was attacked by assassins, good enough to hide their presence."

The two men fighting a few feet away from them were even in strength.

Kaku recognized Aokiji. Before CP9 came together as an organization, there was another organization made up of only three men, with Aokiji included. He had been the only one out of the three against the formation of the CP9, as it had been against his personal code of morals to take orphaned children and make them into assassins for the government.

As it has and always will, the system chose to lay Aokiji off and continue on their path, while the other two who did not object to the newer system advanced in their positions.

"Why are you here, Zoro, along with Nico Robin and Aokiji? Them, I understand, but you, I don't. Do you think I had something to do with the attack?" he asked. "Let me tell you now before this situation escalates, that I had nothing to do with what happened to you and I have no reason to attack you."

"I know," the swordsman calmly told him. "I'm here for another reason. I think it was the organization that tried to get rid of me. I just don't know why and I don't know who to ask."

The blond man standing next to him took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit it up with a slight flick of his thumb. Kaku didn't know who he was but knew that he was strong. The way he was so calm in a situation like this, hardly giving a shit about the fight happening next to him between Lucci and Aokiji and able to stand so closely to Zoro who had once been called a demon in the organization.

There was another unfamiliar presence. The one who spoke up earlier. A dark skinned man with tattoos covering his arms, the words "death" written on his fingers.

His eyes had dark rings around them. An ominous but also tired aura surrounding him.

"We already know that the boss of the organization is Doflamingo, without a doubt. The story you told earlier was between Doflamingo and Corason, my father. The stupid act he did that got him killed, as you suspected, was intentional. It was to protect  _me_  from Doflamingo."

The long nosed man nodded. He knew that love made people do irrational things, even sacrifice their own lives, though he himself would never do such a thing.

"So what do you want from us? You already know that I'm not loyal to the organization, that I'm part of the CP9"

"Tell us where he is," the tattooed man demanded. "Doflamingo."

Kaku found the demand oddly simplistic and unusual. Upon seeing Aokiji and Nico Robin, he immediately thought that they were blackmailing them for information about the CP9. He was surprised to find that their goals aligned with his and Lucci's.

"We know," Kaku told them. "Even this very second, we know where he is and what he's doing."

From this point on he had to word things carefully, knowing that he'd be outmatched if they suddenly decided to attack him. Aokiji alone was enough to occupy Lucci; Zoro with Kaku; and he didn't know how strong the others were. He knew that Nico Robin had basic training as they all did when they were younger, but she'd managed to escape before she was able to proficiently master a technique of her own.

"Let me ask you," Kaku spoke slowly. "Why are you guys working together? I know that Aokiji and Robin's goals aren't related to the organization but to the CP9. Seeing all of you together makes me believe that the end goal isn't Doflamingo but the CP9."

"Our goals are different," Nico Robin told him in a calm tone of voice. "For the time being we're helping them. The organization is doing the same thing as the CP9, taking children to raise them as cold blooded assassins. We're against the cause, not CP9 alone."

In the midst of his fight with Aokiji, neither side budging, Lucci growled, "You were always so naive, Nico Robin. You and Aokiji."

Aokiji responded with a grunt and a swing of his ridiculously long leg in the air, "At least we weren't bred to be killers." Lucci ducked beneath the swinging leg and pierced the air with his fist in an upward motion, which Aokiji dodged by taking a step back with a light tap of his foot.

"What you're telling me is that you will eventually come after the CP9," Kaku stated, though it was more like a question. No one responded to him. "How do I know that you won't try to kill us or come after us after we tell you," he tried again.

"Same thing applies to us," the blond finally spoke, tossing the remainder of his cigarette on the ground. "How do we know that you won't try to kill us after we walk away?"

"I guess you won't," he sighed, not in a way of surrender but due to the unexpected turnout of the night.

Kaku felt that he was caught in a double bind between risking his life to preserve information regarding Doflamingo or giving them what they want in hopes that they won't bother with killing them.

"I'll tell you, in exchange for how you found us," he decided.

Doflamingo wasn't someone he had to defend. He was a target. In some ways, this could be called a favorable situation.

His eyes met with Zoro's, his old partner whom he'd never really looked at even during missions or practice combats. His eyes were intense, staring at Kaku. His hands fondled the hilt of his three swords by his waist, itching to use them. The aura emanating off of him was bloodthirsty and gripped around Kaku's neck, crushing his vocal chords, leaving him wheezing and gasping for air.

The tattooed man snapped him out of his trance by tossing him a black device, which he caught in midair. A phone.

"It's Spandam's," he told Kaku. "We tracked him down and took it from him. He'd probably be coming after us out of vengeance."

The long nosed man took note that only his old partner had an air of bloodthirst. He knew that most likely they'd leave with the information they came for without a fight, like the way they'd left Spandam alone. He was still cautious though, especially with the way Zoro's eyes were shadowing him.

"Doflamingo has a hideout on the top floor of the 'dome'," referring to the place where fighters fight for money and elite businessmen and government authorities come to bet on those fights. "He doesn't own the place, but he's right beneath this man named Kaido, so he has full access to the top floor. But you'd never bypass the security, which means you will never be able to reach the top floor."

"Shit," the raven haired man cursed.

"There's a party," Kaku began, glancing at Lucci to see if he would approve of this next information but the other man seemed too engaged in his fight with Aokiji. "It's happening on Christmas Eve, starting at 10 pm. It's a party held by Charlotte Linlin, a powerful woman married to Kaido. She loves arranging parties and it'll be at their 33-story skyscraper called the Linlin building. It's the biggest one this year and if you have any connections, you'd have more of a chance to meet Doflamingo there."

"How do you know he'll be there?" the raven haired man asked.

Kaku cocked his head and gave a small smile, "You'll just have to see, I suppose."

He made eye contact with Lucci and made a small motion with his hands to indicate that it was time for them to leave. As quick as he attacked Aokiji, he backed off to be by Kaku's side.

"Nice talking to you all, and nice to see you again, Zoro, Robin, but next time we meet I will not hesitate to kill you all," he gave a friendly warning with that same smile on his face before he and Lucci walked away from that alleyway, glancing back a few times to make sure that they were not being followed.

He unlocked Spandam's phone with his simplistic four zero password to see how much data about the CP9 was on there, to find that everything had been erased.

"He took everything, Luch."

The silent man walking next to him was angry, which Kaku could feel despite his nonchalant expression. The fact that they'd all managed to sneak up on them, that Aokiji had easily stopped his attacks, and that they had both been at a complete disadvantage. He knew how much Lucci hated powerlessness, which is how he pushed himself so hard during training and became stronger than anybody else they knew.

"What do you want to do, Luch?" he asked, feeling the cold once more as his body temperature returned to its norm.

The thing about Lucci was his unpredictable nature and no matter how far Kaku thought, he would never fully come to understand him even though he felt that Lucci was the only person in the world who understood him. He was angry, yes, but it would be out of character for him to seek vengeance or irrationally run back to the alleyway to make a point that he was stronger than the rest of them.

"Nothing," he calmly responded.

Kaku chuckled good naturedly, shoving his hands inside his pockets, though it didn't do much against the cold. "You're right. Either Doflamingo will kill them or they'll manage to kill him. Either way, it's a positive outcome for us."

He realized that Lucci had left his black pea coat in the alleyway and was shuddering from the cold.

Few moments like this showed Kaku that he indeed was a human being, able to feel, able to react; and so, it served as a reminder to Kaku that perhaps the little Lucci hadn't died all those years ago, that it was still inside of  _this_  Lucci.

"Drinks are on me tonight, my friend, let's go to Blueno's Bar to warm you up."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The swords were clanging against him, like heavy bells in stormy weather.

They were walking back to Sanji's house despite the brisk weather. The two of them felt that they could use the walk and fresh air. The neighborhoods around them shifted from shady alleyways and worn-out complexes that clearly showed the seedier side of the city, to middle class houses with yards and fences, shrubs surrounding the white porch. The December air was harsh, more so than what he could remember; or perhaps he had just gotten used to the comfort of warmth for the past week or so. He couldn't remember how much time he'd spent in this tranquil lifestyle, nor was he trying to count the days. Time had lost its significance as he was simply trying to enjoy the little moments with Sanji.

Tonight went as expected, better in fact, but his heart felt dark and gloomy as the lingering shadows of his past were reminded tonight. Upon seeing Kaku, unlike last time there wasn't fear but instead it was replaced with pure hatred, of his past or himself, he wasn't quite sure.

Others had left, promising to pick up from today's events on another day.

As suspected, this man named 'Doflamingo' had been the face behind it all. Law seemed to care more about this fact than Zoro. He promised to come up with a plan to get them access to Linlin's party and they had no doubt that Law was capable of making it happen.

Sanji had been chain smoking left and right, depleting his pack effortlessly one after another.

The two of them were walking side by side in a comfortable silence, which was settled between them the moment others said their adieus.

Kaku was a cruel slap in the face for him, forced upon realization that he had not been okay for the past few years ever since the death of his one and only friend. He stole a small glance at the man by his side, and to his surprise Sanji was also looking at him, entrancing him with his deep blue gaze and a small reassuring smile.

Zoro breathed in deeply, welcoming the chilly air to penetrate his lungs and his head cleared away the grey, stormy fog nestled inside with his thoughts.

"Mosshead," Sanji grabbed his attention all of a sudden, blowing out a mouthful of smoke that was plainly visible in this weather. "You looked like you were constipated for the past thirty minutes," he chuckled light-heartedly.

"Look, I get it, marimo," he assured him with a wave of his hand, the cigarette intertwined between his two fingers. "It was a fuck ton to process today. I feel like I've lived several lives just being there. I can't even imagine how it was for you, with your past tied to this shit." It was odd seeing the blond fumble with his words, as he was usually so front about his feelings and thoughts. "What I'm trying to say is… if you want, you can talk to me. You don't have to bottle it all in."

Sanji's eyes were so sincere, so  _real_  that Zoro felt himself choking up, feeling the love he hasn't felt in years. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be vulnerable, bared completely in front of someone else.

"No pressure though," the cook tentatively added.

It was like an old car engine. It was rusty and it needed plenty of time to get it going, but with enough care and love it cranked up again. Softly at first but became louder the longer it was on. Likewise, Zoro felt himself coming around to the idea of opening up.

"Kuina," he croaked, remembering that he'd already told Sanji about her when they were drunk. At the time, Sanji had managed to figure out that she had died with a slip of footing down the stairs, and Zoro had chuckled at the thought that she could've had a much harsher ending.

Sanji nodded in response, "You told me about her, I remember."

"Even though you'd been shitfaced?" the swordsman teased with a small, harmless grin.

There was a small crack in Zoro's voice before he continued, which he tried to disguise with a clear of his throat. "I never had family. I was taken as a baby so I don't have any recollection of who birthed me, but Kuina is who I imagine when everybody talks about having a mom or a sister. We didn't share an ounce of blood, but that doesn't matter… when she died I felt like a piece of me went with her." The ripples of emotions washed over him, pulsating in a rhythmic hum.

He felt those emotions intensify like fireworks when he saw the sincerity in Sanji's eyes. It was like the blond knew exactly what he was feeling, as though he could peer into Zoro's memories just by listening to him talk.

"She was my only friend and family. I was reminded of her when Robin talked about having peace over revenge. Even after Doflamingo took away her father, burned their house down, and took her so she can become an assassin, she worked up to a place where she didn't hate him so much anymore. She was just a little girl, smart and naive. Instead of focusing on her hatred, she poured all that energy into her dream of becoming a swordsman. All she was worried about was not being a man."

Sanji lightly chuckled, amused, "Why did she want to be a man? I would  _love_  to be a woman."

The swordsman playfully retorted with a slight roll of his eye, "That's cuz you're a pervert who's never touched a boob in his life."

With a slight jab of his elbow against Zoro's ribs, he muttered, " _You're_  the one who's never touched a boob."

"I touched Kuina's," Zoro told him in a matter of fact tone of voice.

" _What!_ " Sanji exclaimed before quickly regaining his sense of composure. "How the hell can you say she's like family but you touched her boobs!"

The swordsman shook his head, "It wasn't like that, you ero cook. You're forgetting that we were just kids. She made me grab them when she was explaining to me why she wanted to be a man so badly, telling me that those boobs would hinder her eventually."

Sanji raised a curious brow at him, "Like, they would get in the way when she swings her swords? Or, just referring to the biological differences between men and women."

"Both," Zoro answered. "But I didn't get it. She was so strong, the strongest I've ever seen. All the kids were afraid of her, especially in the beginning when she was really angry over her situation. I was the only one who stood there to take her beatings while the rest ran away from her."

His chest began to throb, and it was beginning to be painful to speak every word. "One day she told me she wasn't so angry anymore, not about her father, her home, or the fact that this man took her away. She just wanted to live, to become the best swordsman as a woman, and she saw this as an opportunity. She had access to the best fighters, and her world widened. Her life wasn't a tragedy, she refused to see it that way, because happiness is a choice, not something that's given."

To his surprise, it wasn't he who began to cry but the blond man in front of him. From his beautiful, deep set of blue eyes was a single tear, trickling down his cheeks.

"Eh?" Sanji seemed to be more surprised by his own response, bringing his fingers up to his eyes to feel the wetness against his skin. "I don't know why I'm crying, marimo," he forced a quiet chuckle, as more tears fell from his eyes. "What you said just reminded me of my dad. He told me something similar when I was younger."

Zoro felt the throb in his chest expand and transform into warmth, spreading across his body.

He had the sudden urge to hold Sanji close to him, to comfort and soothe his aching heart; and he reached out and did just that, grabbing the back of his head, feeling the blonde strands between his fingers, and placing Sanji's face against the nape of his neck. The cook wrapped his slender arms around him and silently cried, the tip of his cold nose brushing ticklishly against Zoro's neck.

He felt Sanji's emotions crashing against his own, two waves in the ocean lapping over one another.

Gently, he spoke again, wrapping up to reach his final point as he therapeutically, in a clockwise motion, rubbed his back. "I haven't felt anything since then, Sanji," he confessed quietly, and he felt his insides tearing apart, screaming for him to stop. "When she died, it was like a part of me died too. It didn't matter what I did. I was more than willing to be a limb for that shitty organization, to let Kuina and my dream _rot_."

Sanji lifted his face to look at him, probably feeling the trembles of the swordsman's emotions and the terror of letting himself be vulnerable for someone else to see. His anger at himself for neglecting his dream and letting himself fall into a pit of despair and apathy.

"It's okay," the blond firmly, but kindly, reminded him. "Someone you love died. That pain never goes away." He reached up to cup the side of Zoro's face and graze his lips with his thumb.

Zoro leaned in to the touch and closed his eyes, feeling so warm in this weather lashing against them. "It was you, Sanji," he mumbled quietly. "You're the one who changed me. You saved me from that fate."

There was quietness in the air when he spoke, as he held Sanji in his arms and feeling the warmth of his body permeating him.

"I never expected you to be like this," Sanji spoke as he pulled away from the swordsman. To his surprise, the tears were falling harder and faster, dribbling down his chin, tangled in the strands of his beard, and hitting the ground like pellets. "I never expected you to be so… kind."

" _Fuck_ ," he uttered as he roughly palmed his face in an attempt to erase those tears.

"You're completely right," Sanji told him. "I did change your fate,  _our_  fate. This  _is_  fate, that I ended up feeling like this toward you, that I ended up…" his gaze met Zoro's, and what the swordsman saw was, once more, that well of pain from this morning, and a touch of remorse.

"...loving you," Sanji ended with another teardrop dribbling down that pale, waxen surface of his skin.

"You shitty marimo."

* * *

 

 **AN** : I really liked writing from Kaku's perspective, which not only gave insight on his friendship with Lucci but gave better background on everybody else, like Aokiji, Robin, and Zoro. And the last scene was so difficult to write. I think that took most of my time, procrastinating from the project to think about how I could continue with this scene alone.

The thing about Zosan that I appreciate the most are the jokes in between even though the emotions are running heavy, and there's so much shit I'm still trying to figure out and lead into.

Thank you for being patient with me! I've learned so much from your comments and this story alone, and I hoped you enjoyed reading this chapter. I'll try to push out the next one as soon as I can :) 


	13. A Flickering Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to humbly thank everyone who has stuck by this fic through its ups and downs, as I've took a long break in between but decided to see it to its end. Please keep the comments flowing, I really appreciate all of your responses and feedback, and I hope to become a better writer with each chapter and story. 
> 
> This chapter is rather short but very heavy and plot oriented. It has heavy emotional themes, like death and trauma. If there's anything confusing please let me know and I will attempt to clarify it without giving away the later parts of the plot. 
> 
> Now, please enjoy~

It was hearing that Sanji loved him that set his heart on fire, the blood to flow into his groins and a moan to escape from his lips in the form of a whisper.

They barely made it back to his house, with little willpower he had in himself before shedding away his swords and clothes, ripping away the little buttons that restricted Zoro from touching Sanji's bare skin, barely breaking apart from their desperate kisses. Their tongues intertwined and breath mingled in an attempt to remain connected, all the while fighting for dominance, for an expression of their passion to love, to live, to fuck one another senselessly.

"Shithead," the blond cursed when he noticed that Zoro has completely ruined his dress shirt. "That was my favorite shirt—" his breath was cut off by another one of his rough kisses that seemed to swallow him whole and drown him in the deepest part of the ocean.

"Shut up," the swordsman growled, trailing his lips down Sanji's neck and biting his protruding collarbones harshly before apologetically sucking on them, leaving traces of bruises and saliva.

" _Fuck_ ," Sanji hissed at the sudden pain, and the pervert popped a boner then and there, liking the mixture of pain and pleasure that only Zoro would give without hesitation, without fearing that he'd hurt him.

Zoro gave him a mischievous grin, the power of being in control soaring through him.

His hands freely roamed down the cook's body, feeling the heat of his pale skin against the palm of his hands. He found the belt to be problematic, fumbling with the buckles and the leather straps before finally loosening Sanji's pants to fall around his ankles. The blond chuckled watching him struggle with pretty fundamental stuff, and lovingly wrapped his arms around his neck and kissed him softly on the side of his head, feeling the brush of his green strands tickling his chin.

Zoro was reminded to kiss the blond when he felt his lips against his head. He pushed Sanji's body against the arm of the couch, and had him sit there comfortably as he kissed and nibbled on his porcelain skin, drawing out a few pleasured groans that gave him an understanding of his preferences.

" _Zoro_ ," Sanji gasped when the swordsman teasingly sucked on his perky, pink nipple while grazing the tip of his cock with his thumb, slicking his pre-cum to cover the entire head. His hands, still cold from the weather outside, was pulling Zoro's shirt to go over his head and very obviously feeling him up; the hard, rugged muscles that covered every bit of his body and the veins popping out of his forearms.

He used to feel uncomfortable under the gaze of the cook, but now he felt his confidence soaring sky high, as though he had just won a fight with a powerful opponent.

"Tell me what you want," his voice sickly sweet, and so low that it could've been a whisper, staring into the wanton gaze of Sanji's who was biting his bottom lip to contain another moan.

He was so sexy that his erection twitched, yearning for the sweet release inside of the cook.

 _Down boy_ , he ordered silently in his mind.

The cook defiantly ignored him and cocked his head to the side, taunting him with a smirk as though asking: what are you going to do about it?

"I guess you don't want anything then," Zoro responded to his silence, abruptly pulling himself away from the cook's nakedness.

The cook instinctively pulled him by the wrist and wrapped his legs around his waist, similar to how he locks him down in a fight.

"You aren't going anywhere, mosshead," he whispered into his ears with their bodies pulled so closely together, his hands holding him by his butt and his erection trapped between them.

With a smirk, the swordsman wrapped his fingers around his cock. Sanji writhed under the spell of slow and soft strokes on his erection, his hands on Zoro's butt loosening and his legs spreading without much conscious thought. With his index and middle finger, using Sanji's pre-cum as his lube he pressed inside of him, causing Sanji's mouth to fall open in pure bliss and a lustful moan to escape from his lips, unable to hold it in any longer.

Sanji squirmed when he spread his fingers inside of him, to stretch him out before making any rough movements. "So tight, Sanji," he remarked as he began to slide his fingers in and out of him in a quicker rhythm to match the movement around his erection.

His cock was throbbing and twitching in anticipation, watching Sanji's lewd appearance as he was binging on the pleasures Zoro was providing him.

"Tell me what you want, marimo," he teased him, leaning his head back, and he let out the most erotic moan when Zoro's pumps on his cock quickened, his prodding fingers rubbing deeper and experimentally curling inside of him.

" _Fuckkk me_ ," he gasped as his eyes rolled back slightly and his head fell forward to rest on Zoro's shoulder.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, Zoro spat into the palm of his hand and lubed himself before aligning the head of his erection in front of Sanji's entrance. "Can I fuck you?" he asked, the thread of his self control about to snap in half.

"Tell me how much you want it," Sanji demanded, as he replaced Zoro's strokes with his own hand, slicking his cock with his leaking pre-cum. " _Tell me_  how much you want me," he growled loudly.

"I want you so fucking bad, Sanji. I want to fuck you senselessly and cum inside you, make you scream my name until your voice is hoarse," his desires flowing out of him like a river, his cock twitching against Sanji's entrance as to wonder why it wasn't inside of him.

Lightning quick, Sanji brought him inside of him by wrapping his legs around him, and Zoro found himself deeply and fully buried inside where Sanji's muscles were tensing and squeezing around him. Sanji's hold on him loosened but beckoned him to move as he slid closer to the edge.

"Fuck me, Zoro," the blond begged, jerking himself off with both hands. "Make it rough," he added, as though he was ordering a drink with a lemon slice on top.

A quick snap of his hips at first before pounding and thrusting into him relentlessly, sliding in and out of him and soon finding a steady rhythm. Their grunts and groans soon filled up the space around them. Sanji's eyes were shut down to lose himself in the pace, his hand gripping onto the cushions of the sofa to steady his balance and offer more leverage to have Zoro's length in him as deep as possible.

" _Jesus, fuck_ ," he groaned out with gritted teeth, timing his strokes with Zoro's thrusts.

Zoro wondered how it felt to be stimulated both inside and out, curious whether he himself should take the plunge of being fucked by Sanji.

" _Fuck me more, Zoro. Faster!_ " Sanji demanded in elation, and Zoro knew he was about to come.

He fulfilled the blond's demands by picking up his speed, gripping Sanji by the hip bones and pulling him to meet each thrust and driving himself even deeper. He felt like his cock was suffocating inside of him, in the  _heat_  of Sanji's ass, and it felt so good—best, in fact, that he could only focus on nothing but his thrusts, feeling the muscles around him tensing and quivering erratically as Sanji came in his hand in a mangled cry of moans.

Zoro came only a few seconds after, allowing the intense feeling to overwhelm his whole being and his pleasure to peak in a widespread of waves.

With a strained grunt and a small shudder, he released his load inside of Sanji.

At the peak of his high, where thoughts and feelings melded into a single focal point, he confessed to the man he was still connected to, sprawled out in front of him with his whole body flushed red.

"I love you."

He knelt down, brought the slimmer body closer to him into a small hug and rested his head on Sanji's bony shoulder.

"I love you," he said again after the euphoric sensation faded into the sound of his own heart, thumping loud and fast in his ears.

There was a few seconds where they held each other in silence, their quick and uneven breaths slowing down into its regular pace.

The blond wrapped his arms around him, tentative at first but welcoming eventually, kissing him gently on the side of his neck and running his fingers down his back.

"I love you too, marimo," he whispered into his ears, his tongue playing with the three gold earrings hanging down from his earlobe.

"That tickles," Zoro told him with a lift of his forehead and finally pulling himself out of the blond, feeling the texture similar to glue against his pelvis. "Let's get cleaned up," he suggested with a light chuckle, wondering how the cook was going to clean up this couch.

He remembered how many bed sheets they had to replace in the last two days.

Sanji groaned, coming to the same realization Zoro had as he looked down at himself, "How am I going to clean this couch?"

Still intertwined with Sanji's body, the green haired man nuzzled against him like a domesticated cat would with his owner and wrapped his arms around his waist, scooping him up from beneath, holding the hard muscles of his ass in his hands.

"We can worry about that later, let's take a bath," he proposed, though it was more of a forewarning before lifting him up and taking him to the bathroom.

"Okay," he agreed with a light kiss to his lips.

A few more of these small kisses as the water filled up the tub, large enough to contain them both, and a few playful grabs to the crotch and near death experiences as they competed to see who could stay underwater longer—which, according to Sanji, was himself, but Zoro knew it wasn't.

They quickly dried themselves to be comfortably nestled up against one another to watch one more episode of Luffy's favorite anime.

Sanji was the first one to fall asleep, clearly exhausted from the day's events with no action to kick up his adrenaline, and he snored softly next to Zoro who stayed awake to finish up the episode. After the episode came to an end and the music began to play, the swordsman hit the power button to turn the tv off. With the white blanket still on top of him Zoro carried Sanji to the bed, so gently that it would've kept a baby asleep, before crashing down next to him.

As he laid there on the softest pillow he'd ever had the pleasure of putting his head on, Zoro's mind flipped through the memories of today's events, recalling Sanji's expression of pure ecstasy and his face of tears. He had glimpses of Kaku, Law, and Robin; as well as a vague shape of a man whom he imagined as Doflamingo.

"Shitty marimo," he heard Sanji's voice loud and clear in his head, the last thing he heard before plunging into darkness. His consciousness faded away, past the state of insomniac sleep and into a real REM state where dreams and memories became a solidified unity...

…

It was nine, ten years ago that he stood in front of a white complex, with a sign he couldn't read as the moon was hidden behind the clouds. He didn't look up at the sky but he assumed that was the case. The black bandanna was wrapped around his forehead, his three swords by his side, and he was alone.

He stood outside. A hot summer night. A flicker of fire in his vision, but he shook that image off with a quick shake of his head.

The mission he was given was simple: go to this location and kill the man living there.

It was the time of night when the whole world's asleep, except Zoro, who's been suffering with insomnia ever since the death of his only friend. Everything was quiet around him and he heard himself swallow a large ball of saliva, creeping down slowly and coating his dry throat

The day before, he had moved to this new vicinity, the grey box resembling more of a prison camp than a school. Another amiable man, this time very tall and muscular, helped him set up his space on the bunk bed and showed him around the place. The boy felt the vibe of the place to be ominous and heavy. No one talked to one another in a friendly manner and everybody stared at him with an eyebrow raised, probably wondering why such a young kid was recruited to be an assassin so soon.

Most of them had been recruited between the ages of sixteen and eighteen.

The only person who had the audacity to be cheerful was the tall man next to him, who seemed more like skinny Santa Clause than an assassin. Speaking of Santa Clause, there were Christmas decorations still hanging around the walls, as though assassins who dealt with matters of life and death cared about something so superfluous like Christmas.

Red lights everywhere.

The tall man gave him his first mission with a reassuring pat to his head, well-knowing the pressure of approaching the thought of killing someone for the first time.

"You'll get used to it," his voice echoed in his head as Zoro stared at the white complex in front of him.

 _It's time_ , another voice inside of him said, someone who sounded like himself but older, stricter, meaner.

He found himself inside of the building, snuck inside through an open window on the second floor, and cautiously made every step with a meticulous forethought.

"There's two people living there, on the second floor," the jolly, tall man told him the day before. "A man and a kid."

The darkness had settled in around him and his vision cleared up. He was inside of a kitchen with silver pots and pans hanging above his head, his hand leaning on top of a cold stove next to him and a tall, marble counter top in front of him. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth when he saw that there was no one around him. It would've been completely insensible for someone to be in the kitchen during this time of the night.

But the irony of it all was that, of course there  _had_  to be someone up at three in the morning to cook something.

The moment he loosened his guard and exhaled a sigh of relief, the fluorescent light flickered on in that instant. Every fibrous tissue and muscle in his body screamed in panic, and he dove behind the counter top in hopes that the entering figure did not see or hear him.

Small footsteps and a long yawn, dragging his feet into the kitchen. From the sound of it, Zoro had a feeling that it was the kid who walked in. The kitchen stove was fired up and the metal pot was grabbed from where Zoro had been standing. A small hum, which confirmed Zoro's suspicions, as the boy grabbed what it sounded like a large tub from the cabinet above him. He saw a flicker of blond hair in the corner of his eye and a chef's hat lopsidedly placed on his head.

 _Why is this idiot cooking at three in the morning?_ he thought irritably.

He shifted his body little by little without making a single sound. His knees were rubbing against the kitchen tile, one of his hands clutching his three swords together to ensure they didn't make a sound and the other hand was balancing his body by gripping the floor. The trick was to imagine himself as a lithe animal; a snake slithering in the grass with its small beady eyes locked into the target. It was definitely easier said than done, but he had trained his entire life for moments like this, to silently enter the private lives of others' and to leave unnoticed.

There was a  _swoosh_  sound, alarming him to see that the blond was handling a large flame in the pot.

"Oh shit," the blond boy cried out in alarm, clearly as surprised as Zoro by the fire.

While he was distracted by the fire, the green haired boy took his risks by fleeing out of the kitchen and into the dark hallway, holding the swords against himself.

Sweat beads dripping down his forehead. The sweltering heat of the summer weather combined with his own temperature that was roused by his anxiety of getting caught. It would be all over if the blond boy saw him. He would  _fail_ as an assassin, then his purpose of being alive would dissipate.

 _Best swordsman_ , Kuina once uttered. Could that be his dream, too?

He didn't know where he was going, other than the fact that he was walking away from the kitchen and into a room at the end of the hallway. There was no explanation for how he knew, but he sensed life emanating from that room; it was similar to feeling a presence nearby, and he was damn good at that even with his eyes closed.

Between the crack of the door, he slipped through and saw the old man sleeping with his mouth open.

 _My chance_ , he thought, unsheathing a single sword out of its scabbard. It wasn't Wado ichimonji though. He would never dirty such a pure sword that resonated with the essence of Kuina.

He crept closer to the geezer with an oddly braided mustache hanging off the sides of his face, with his sword held in front of him.

"Eggplant?" the old man suddenly murmured and Zoro felt his blood freezing. "Why are you standing over me, Eggplant, what's wrong?" His voice was fatherly, so warm and tender, loving in a way Zoro has never felt before.

He couldn't move even though he knew he had to. The geezer's sight was still muddled from his sleepiness but he would soon come to an understanding that the boy in front of him wasn't his own.

"Well, say something or I'm going back to sleep," he grumbled with a heavy yawn.

Zoro swallowed that big lump in his throat again and held his sword tighter, feeling his clammy palms around the cloth that was wrapped around the hilt. He felt his heart pounding in his ears, the sweat dripping down his temples, and every nerve in his body telling him, shouting for him to turn back and run out the way he came from.

Then the voice he heard earlier assuaged him, firmly, commanding him to take the geezer's life:  _Do it._

"Why is he being hunted?" Zoro asked the tall, jolly man. "What did he do wrong?"

For the first time, the idiotic, merry look dropped from his expression and his demeanor flipped one-eighty degrees. The man lifted his pink sunglasses with his thumb and Zoro saw his eyes widening in fury, lips pressing, and eyebrows knitting.

With a low snarl, he answered: "Because that  _fucker_  betrayed us."

Zoro swung the blade down, imagining the cruelest eyes he'd ever seen in his mind's eye beneath those sunglasses, and plunged the sword into the old man in front of him. The geezer didn't even know what hit him until he recognized simultaneously as he was stabbed in his vital organ that the boy in front of him wasn't blond.

" _Agh_ ," he cried out, as the blade sunk deeper into the flesh.

The boy smelled the scent of blood hitting his nostrils and felt nauseous. The feeling of the old man's bones cracking under Zoro's weight and the sound of his insides squelching; it was all so unsettling.

He knew that there was no way the old man had any chance of surviving this encounter.

"Old fart?" In the faint distance, a voice called out to the darkness. "Are you awake?" It was the boy, approaching closer, his footsteps echoing down the hallway to where they were.

As life was dissipating from his body, the old man mustered all the strength left in him to shout: " _Run!"_  to the approaching boy, crimson blood pouring out of his wound and flooding the floor, shortening the remainder of his time in this world.

In panic, Zoro pulled the sword out of him and made a run for it.

There was no air in his lungs. He was struggling to breathe, like he had taken a dive into the river and the water was collapsing his lungs. Lightheaded and vision blurring, he passed the blond boy in the hallway without looking up, afraid that he would see the truth in Zoro's eyes, the part that he desperately wanted to hide. The fact that he was shaking like a leaf inside; the fact that he was afraid.

"Wha—" came out of the blond boy's mouth before dashing into the room at the end of the hallway.

Zoro was nearing the kitchen when he heard a piercing scream, a wail that sounded like the sirens that would come later on. He also saw the roaring fire from the kitchen coming to life, taking form outside of the pot.

The blond boy had forgotten to turn the stove off.

A terrible stench of ashes, the fire eating away everything in its reach. The tearful cries of the boy from the other room, probably holding the old man in his arms, in his blood stained hands. Zoro knew that he was struggling to grasp the reality even with the corpse in front of him, that his old man was actually dead and that he was all alone in this world. Just like him.

There was so much smoke filling up the air, which he couldn't see in the darkness but could feel it entering his nose. He decided to run through the smoke and fire despite the odds. He needed to make his getaway before authorities showed up.

The fire hadn't consumed the entire kitchen yet, so he was able to make his way across safely, following the direction in which the smoke was letting itself out. With ease, he launched himself out of the window and dashed across the premises to hide his presence in the woods, leaving behind the burning building behind.

He knew the smart thing would've been to leave completely and head back to the organization, but he couldn't forget the sound of the boy's cries. His own bloodied hands after stabbing that old man. The cruel eyes of the man he once thought of as jolly. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him but he heard cries ringing in his ears, a voice filled with so much sorrow and loss. Zoro felt a sharp pang of guilt in his own chest, but also a well of sadness of his own, a pit that was so deep and dark that he couldn't recognize himself.

In a far-off distance he heard sirens weaving with the boy's wails. He watched the building starting to crumble as the roaring fire began to dance wildly, coating the building in its reddish orange hue.

He stood there, watching, in this hot summer night, with tears streaming down his face...

…

When Zoro woke up, the sunlight had peaked through the curtains and was hitting his eyes. He remembered fragments of his dreams but most of those memories were forgotten again, dwelling in his subconsciousness once more. What remained was this sadness, a deep feeling so engraved in his chest that he had trouble breathing, as though it was jammed between his respiratory tract.

He touched his eyes to feel that there were tears in his eyes, and for a second he saw the fire flicker in his vision.

 _What a shitty morning_ , he thought silently in his head with a voice that oddly resembled the blond's.

Speaking of the blond, he wasn't anywhere in sight nor was there a scent in the air that implied he was cooking in the kitchen. Confused, the swordsman slipped out of the sheets and looked around him, looking for clues. He found a yellow sticky note attached to the nightstand next to the bed.

" _Off to work, there's blueberry muffins and breakfast sandwiches in the refrigerator - Sanji."_

Zoro lightly scoffed at the fact that the cook signed the note off with his name at the end, as though they weren't the only two residents in this house.

"A man and a kid," a voice in his head said, and his thoughts momentarily halted at the sound of that voice. He couldn't remember who said those words, but it sent a chill down his back. He quickly shook that thought out of his head and dipped into the kitchen, finding exactly what the blond told him to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I was told by someone that I need to work on the usage of imagery/letting the scenes describe themselves instead of me telling the story. So, this chapter is the result of that and I think it came out pretty well. 
> 
> I was pretty split on whether I wanted Zoro to actually kill. Arguably the real Zoro (at the age of 19) might've went against the tide and followed his gut instincts, but the kid Zoro who's emotional and vulnerable from his friend's death, I thought might've gone through with it. 
> 
> Again, please let me know what you thought in the comments section!


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